I  im 


M 

''m 

h 

I. 

M^^ 

FOOTSTEPS  OF  SCOTT 


Breathes  there  the  man,  with  soul  so  dead. 
Who  never  to  himseK  hath  said, 

This  is  my  own,  my  native  land  ! 
Whose  heart  hath  ne'er  within  him  burn'd. 
As  home  his  footsteps  he  hath  turn'd  .  .  ." 

Scott. 


mm_ 


ABBOTSFORD.   SOUTH    FRONT,    FACING 

THE   GARDENS 

From  a  water-colour  drawing  by 

TOM   SCOTT,   R.S.A. 


I  have  seen  much,  but  nothing  like  my  ain  house." 
SCOTT. 


FOOTSTEPS   OF 
SCOTT 

BY 

W.    S.    CROCKETT 

MINISTER   OF   TWEEDSMUIR  ; 

AUTHOR   OF   "in    PRAISE   OF   TWEED,""  THE  SCOTT   COUNTRY," 

"  ACBOTSFORD,"    "  IN   THE   BORDER   COUNTRY,"   ETC.,    ETC. 


ILLUSTRATIONS    BY 
TOM   SCOTT,   R.S.A. 


PHILADELPHIA 

GEORGE   W.  JACOBS    &   CO. 

PUBLISHERS 


hAThJ 


TO 

THE    JdEMORY 

OF 
air    MOTHER 


9Cir^. 


^^5408 


PREFACE 

The  chapters  that  follow  are  biographi- 
cal and  topographical.  There  is  no  need 
for  a  new  Life  of  Scott ;  and  the  present 
little  volume  makes  no  claim  to  be  re- 
garded as  such.  It  is  written  chiefly  for 
those  who  desire  to  have  recorded,  vdthin 
brief  space,  the  salient  features  respect- 
ing Sir  Walter  and  his  Land.  Some  fresh 
facts  will  be  found  here  and  there. 

The    proofs    have    been    read    by    my 
friend  Mr  Cuthbert  Hadden. 


W.  S.  CROCKETT. 


The  Manse, 

TWfiEDSMUIR, 

October  1907. 


CONTENTS 


OHAP.  PAOK 

1.  WALTER  SCOTT'S  LAND 1 

2.  MARRIAGE  AND  "THE  MINSTRELSY"      .        .  8 

3.  ASHESTIEL  AND  THE  VERSE  ROMANCES        .  63 

4.  ABBOTSFORD 79 

5.  FOOTPRINTS  OF  WAVERLEY       .        .        .        .102 

6.  "  FAIR  MELROSE  " 146 

7.  THE  LAST  PHASE 175 

8.  SCOTT  TO-DAY 202 


LIST  OF   ILLUSTRATIONS 

Reproduced  from  water-colour  drcmings 

painted  specially  for  this  T»ork  by 

TOM  SCOTT.  R.S.A. 


Abbotsford,  South   Front            ...  Frontispiece 
Sandyknowe  Tower            ....  Facing  page  22 

Yarrow "44 

Newark "72 

Abbotsford,  North  Front,  facing  the  Tweed  "         86 

Jedburgh  Abbey "152 

Melrose  Abbey "164 

St.  Mary's  Loch "170 

Dryburgh  Abbey "198 


FOOTSTEPS  OF  SCOTT 

CHAPTER  I 

WALTER  SCOTT'S  LAND 

To  any  reader  of  the  Romances,  Walter 
Scott's  Land  cannot  be  restricted  to  that 
comparatively  small  stretch  of  country 
bounded  on  one  side  by  the  Liberties  of 
Berwick,  on  the  other  by  the  Solway  Moss, 
and  known  to  history  as  the  Scottish  Bor- 
der. That  would  be  a  clearly  impossible 
limit.  As  we  shall  see,  however,  it  has  a 
perfectly  legitimate  claim  to  be  called  "the 
Scott  Country,"  and  to  be  so  regarded  in 
the  popular  interpretation  of  the  phrase. 
For  in  one  crowning  sense  it  is  Sir  Walter's 
Land^the  land  of  his  nativity;  the  land 
consecrated  by  his  life,  his  herculean  lab- 
ours, his  joys,  and  his  sorrows. 
At  its  widest,  nevertheless,  Walter  Scott's 
1  1 


FOOTSTEPS  OF  SCOTT 
Land  must  obviously  extend  far  away  be- 
yond the  Tweed  and  the  Border  Marches — 
far  from  the  country  which  gave  him  birth. 
What  region  has  not  been  touched  by  his 
wizard  spell  ?  If  we  make  his  writings — the 
sphere  of  his  imagination — the  gauge  of 
area,  we  shall  have  a  singularly  vast  field  to 
traverse.  Not  so  easy,  then,  to  define  what 
is  meant  by  Walter  Scott's  Land !  Take 
the  Scottish  romances  alone,  and  the  whole 
of  North  Britain  is  embraced  in  the  term. 
From  that  "wild  hyperborean  isle,"  sacred 
to  Noma  of  the  Fitful  Head,  sacred  to 
Minna  and  Brenda,  those  ever -winsome 
maidens  of  The  Ph^afe,  down  to  the  arena 
of  Redgauntlet  and  Guy  Mannering  by  the 
Solway  Firth,  there  is  hardly  a  tract  of 
Scotland  but  owes  something  to  the  genius 
of  the  greatest  of  the  Scots.  From  Ben- 
becula  among  "  the  wind-swept  Hebrides  " 
to  St  Abb's  in  the  east,  one  can  never  miss 
the  glamour ie  of  a  land  of  which  it  has  been 
said  that  the  poet  has  sung,  and  the  roman- 
cist  has  wandered,  as  of  old  the  "  shenach- 


WALTER     SCOTT'S     LAND 

ies,"  or  Gaelic  story-tellers,  wandered — 
love  in  their  hearts,  a  light  in  their  eyes, 
an  old  tale  on  their  lips. 

But  if  the  range  of  genius  is  to  delimit 
the  Country  of  Sir  Walter,  not  all  the  inspir- 
ation of  "  his  own,  his  native  land "  were 
sufficient  for  such  a  Master.  True  to  the 
old  moss -trooping  traditions,  we  should 
find  ourselves  making  sundry  "raids"  a- 
cross  the  Border:  into  the  central  England 
oilvanhoe,  for  instance;  into  the  Warwick- 
shire of  Ke7iihvorth — the  richest  of  all  the 
English  counties  in  literary  association ; 
into  the  Derbyshire  of  Peveril  of  the  Peak; 
into  the  Oxfordshire  of  Woodstock,  and  the 
fascinating  London  of  The  Fortunes  of 
Nigel.  Nor  would  one  omit  the  Welsh 
Borderland  of  The  Betrothed,  or  the  Isle 
of  Man,  where  Julian  Peveril  "  opened  out 
his  whole  heart"  to  the  beautiful  Alice 
Bridgenorth.  Neither,  from  the  stand- 
point of  our  author's  productiveness,  does 
this  terminate  the  scope  of  his  Country. 
Scott's  genius  was  of  too  keen  and  imagin- 


FOOTSTEPS      OF      SCOTT 

ative  a  nature  to  be  confined  to  the  coasts 
of  his  native  Britain.  He  must  needs  sail 
the  seas  and  wander  in  sunnier  chmes,  ad- 
venturous-wise, ^th  Quentin  Durward  in 
fair  Provence  and  Aix,  the  old  troubadour 
capital;  with  the  knights  of  The  Talisman 
in  Syria  and  the  Holy  Land ;  with  pretty 
Menie  Gray,  the  heroine  of  The  Surgeons 
Daughter,  in  far-away  Mysore ;  with  Anne 
of  Geier stein  in  Switzerland  and  the  Rhine; 
with  Don  Roderick  in  Spain ;  with  Count 
Robert  of  Paris  in  Constantinople.  Italy, 
that  rich  land  of  romance,  Sir  Walter  left 
practically  untouched,  save  for  the  never- 
to-be-published  77  Bizarro,  a  product  of  his 
djdng  pen,  written  at  Naples.  It  is  curious, 
too,  that  Ireland  has  so  small  a  place  in  the 
work  of  one  who,  as  he  tells  us,  drew  his 
early  inspiration  as  a  writer  of  fiction  from 
Miss  Edgeworth,  the  novelist  of  Castle 
Rackrent  and  The  Absentee.  Nor,  if  we  ex- 
cept Major  Bridgenorth's  reminiscences  of 
New  England  life,  in  Peveril  of  the  Peak, 
does  America  seem  to  have  made  any  ap- 
4 


WALTER    SCOTT'S    LAND 

peal  to  Scott;  though  it  can  scarcely  be  for- 
gotten that  several  of  his  lifelong  friends 
were  Americans,  At  its  widest,  therefore 
(not  to  further  labour  the  point),  Walter 
Scott's  Land  will  carry  us  from  the  Stone 
of  Hoy  to  the  Golden  Horn, — from  the 
"glittering  and  resolute  streams  of  Tweed" 
to  the  brown  and  turbid  waters  of  the  Jor- 
dan, comprising,  in  part  at  least,  the  older 
Continents  of  Europe  and  Asia. 

But  the  true  Scott-Land  has  naturally  a 
more  restricted  area.  The  former  is  too 
large  a  space  for  the  homage  of  the  heart. 
There  must  be  a  more  personal  definition 
— one  which  can  be  grasped  with  a  con- 
scious affection.  What  is  peculiarly  the 
Country  of  Sir  Walter  must  be  taken  to  be 
that  where  the  greater  part  of  his  outward 
and  actual  as  well  as  his  imaginative  life 
was  passed,  the  region  which  lay  closest  to 
his  heart  and  memory;  which  he  knew 
best  and  loved  most;  where  life's  truest 
joys  first  came  to  him;  the  scene  of  his 
marvellous  successes  and  of  his  overwhel- 
5 


FOOTSTEPS      OF      SCOTT 

ming  reverses ;  the  country  where,  single- 
handed,  braver  fight  was  never  fought,  and 
where,  like  the  dead  Douglas,  fallen,  but 
not  worsted,  he  sleeps  well  after  the  long, 
hard  day.  That  must  always  be  Walter 
Scott's  Land  as  it  touches  the  human  heart. 

We  have  already  spoken  of  this  region  as 
that  which  comes  under  the  designation 
of  the  Scottish  Border,  comprising,  to  put 
it  simply,  the  romantic  valley  of  the  Tweed 
and  its  tributaries.  This,  at  all  events,  is 
claimed  as  the  Border  district  in  its  liter- 
ary, and  consequently  in  its  Scott  sense. 
But,  for  our  present  purpose,  let  us  include 
Edinburgh  and  Lasswade  also,  and  the 
mapping  out  of  Walter  Scott's  Land,  in  the 
character  in  which  we  are  to  deal  with  it, 
will  be  complete.  Here  centre  the  chief 
Scott  associations,  twined  round  such 
names  as  Sandyknowe,  Kelso,  Ashestiel, 
Abbotsford,  Yarrow,  Melrose,  Dryburgh, 
and  many  others. 

What  memories  does  the  mere  mention 
of  them  conjure  up  in  the  mind  of  every 
6 


WALTER    SCOTT'S    LAND 

lover  of  Sir  Walter!  These  names  were 
constantly  upon  his  own  lips ;  nor  did  the 
world  contain  more  hallowed  spots  than 
they  were  to  him  all  his  life  long. 


CHAPTER  II 

MARRIAGE  AND   "THE  MINSTRELSY" 

What  has  been  called — and  probably  is — 
the  greatest  event  in  the  history  of  Edin- 
burgh— the  birth  of  Walter  Scott — took 
place  a  hundred  and  thirty-six  years  ago 
this  summer  of  1907.  It  is  curious  to  think 
of  one  still  living,^  who  for  more  than  a 
quarter  of  a  century  was  Scott's  contem- 
porary, who  conversed  with  him,  who  can 
remember  Abbotsf ord  in  the  making,  who 
heard  the  conflict  of  talk  about  Waverley, 
and  who  saw  Scott's  funeral.  Of  recent 
links  with  Scott  which  the  newspapers 
have  been  chronicling  from  time  to  time, 
this  is  certainly  the  most  remarkable.    For 

*  James  Bell,  Galashiels — a  native  of  Earlston,  b.  1804, 
At  the  moment  of  writing  the  death  is  announced  of  the 
last  survivor — George  Groal,  Edinburgh — of  those  who  were 
present  at  the  famous  Theatrical  Fund  Dinner  in  1827,  when 
Scott  avowed  himself  "  the  total  and  undivided  author  "of 
the  Waverley  Novels.     Mr  Croal  was  born  in  1811. 

8 


MARRIAGE  AND  "THE  MINSTRELSY" 
no  other  now  living  can  recall  the  origin- 
al Abbotsford  —  before  the  place  passed 
into  Scott's  hands,  as  far  back  as  1811 — 
when  our  centenarian  was  a  boy  of  seven. 
It  would  be  interesting  and  instructive  to 
have  the  collected  reminiscences  of  persons 
alive  at  the  beginning  of  the  twentieth 
century  who  had  seen  Scott,  or  better  still, 
who  had  spoken  to  him.  Such  memories 
must  soon  be  extinct  altogether. 

One  hardly  needs  to  ask  what  were 
Scott's  feelings  towards  Edinburgh.  It 
was  his  "own  romantic  town,"  the  "pearl  of 
cities."  Its  long  proud  history  lay  at  his 
fingers'  ends,  he  said.  The  glamour  of  its 
quaint  streets,  haunted  by  the  ghosts  of 
centuries,  and  its  "solemn  but  seductive 
beauty,"  continued  with  him  from  youth 
to  age,  strangely  heightened  during  his 
last  illness,  when  he  was  constantly  recal- 
ling sights  and  scenes  in  the  High  Street 
and  Canongate,  every  ancient  building  of 
which  none  knew  so  well  as  he.  There  is 
no  better  word-picture  of  Edinburgh  (a 
9 


FOOTSTEPS      OF      SCOTT 

Turner  in  verse)  than  that  of  Marmion, 
canto  iv. — the  description  of  the  Blackford 
Hill  panorama,  most  dear  to  Scott — dear 
to  Edinburgh  lovers  everywhere: — 

*'  Still  on  the  spot  Lord  Marmion  stay'd, 
For  fairer  scene  he  ne'er  surveyed.   .  .  . 
The  wandering  eye  could  o'er  it  go, 
And  mark  the  distant  city  glow 
With  gloomy  splendour  red  ; 
For  on  the  smoke-wreaths,  huge  and  slow, 
That  round  her  sable  turrets  flow. 
The  morning  beams  were  shed, 
And  tinged  them  with  a  lustre  proud, 
Like  that  which  streaks  a  thunder-cloud. 
Such  dusky  grandeur  clothed  the  height 
Where  the  huge  Castle  holds  its  state, 

And  all  the  steep  slope  down, 
Whose  ridgy  back  heaves  to  the  sky. 
Piled  deep  and  massy,  close  and  high. 
Mine  own  romantic  town  !  " 

All  through,  in  the  Waverleys  and  verse- 
romances,  there  are  many  kindly  allusions 
to  the  city  of  his  dreams  and  desires.  In  the 
senseofbeingproprietor,  Scott  was  an  Edin- 
burgh citizen  for  all  but  thirty  years,  and 
from  the  publication  of  Waverleyhe  was  the 
city's  most  notable  figure.  As  he  walked 
10 


MARRIAGE  AND  "  THE  MINSTRELSY  " 

Edinburgh's  streets,  which  he  was  fond  of 
doing,  limping  his  way  home  from  the  Par- 
liament House  to  "  dear  39  "  Castle  Street 
(the  city's  truest  memorial,  notwithstand- 
ing Kemp's  masterpiece),many  a  head  must 
have  turned  to  look  at  him,  to  admire  his 
otherwise  robust  and  manly  form.  Many 
a  ^whisper  to  child  or  stranger  must  have 
followed  him,  "See,  that  is  Sir  Walter 
Scott!"  Many  there  must  have  been  to 
remember  and  tell  long  afterwards  how 
they  had  seen  the  "Author  of  Waverley" 
at  his  best.  Scott  moved  with  absolute 
freedom  up  the  High  Street,  and  down  the 
Mound,  or  along  Princes  Street,  pausing 
at  the  bookshops,  or  the  Clubs,  or  at  the 
houses  of  his  friends.  He  was  naturally 
one  of  the  "sights"  of  the  Capital, but  never 
was  he  molested,  nor  did  anything  occur  to 
mar  the  good  feeling  which  knit  him  to 
the  mass  of  his  fellow-citizens.  For  Edin- 
burgh had  long  taken  Scott  to  its  heart, 
and  his  own  unbounded  affection  for  the 
place  of  his  birth,  where  practically  the 
11 


FOOTSTEPS  OF  SCOTT 
whole  of  his  active  Kfe  was  spent,  is  a 
world's  possession.  It  was  from  Edinburgh 
that  he  drew  much  of  the  inspiration  of 
Waverley  and  its  compeers.  Whilst  fur- 
nishing him  with  no  end  of  romantic  ma- 
terial, the  city  itself  and  its  surroundings 
became  the  arena  of  scenes  the  most  un- 
forgettable in  Scottish  fiction.  At  Edin- 
burgh, Scott  lived  (humbly)  in  the  glow  of 
a  literary  success  that  has  never  been 
equalled.  And  here,  too,  had  he  experience 
of  the  cloudy  and  dark  day.  Does  any  one 
marvel  that  the  "grey  metropolis  of  the 
North"  cherishes,  as  it  does,  the  name  of  its 
"chief est  scribe  and  recorder"?  For  was 
he  not,  and  is  he  not,  out  of  all  sight,  the 
noblest  of  its  sons,  the  most  chivalrous 
Scot  of  them  all  ?  To  speak  of  Edinburgh 
as  "Sir  Walter's  Town"  is  to  confer  a 
higher  honour  than  all  its  kings,  or  states 
men,  or  wise  men  of  the  past  have  been  able 
to  bestow  upon  it.  For,  all  the  world  over, 
how  do  the  magic  memories  of  Edinburgh 
and  of  Scott  go  wandering  hand  in  hand ! 
12 


MARRIAGE  AND  "  THE  MINSTRELSY  " 
Literally  in  the  heart  of  the  Old  Town — 
under  the  shadow  of  St  Giles',  it  may  be  said 
— Scott  first  saw  the  light.  The  Edinburgh 
of  that  epoch  differed  considerably  from 
its  modern  queenly  representative.  It  was 
still  the  old,  romantic,  mediaeval  city,  hav- 
ing the  High  Street  running  up  from 
Holyrood  to  the  Castle  for  its  principal 
thoroughfare — a  street  probably  unmatch- 
ed in  Europe  for  the  number  and  character 
of  its  historical  associations.  One  of  Scott's 
favourite  haunts  as  boy  and  man,  it  is  fre- 
quently sketched  in  the  poems  and  novels. 
"  How  often  have  I  seen  him,"  says  Lock- 
hart,  "  go  a  long  way  round  about  rather 
than  miss  the  opportunity  of  passing 
through  some  of  the  quaint  windings  of 
the  ancient  city.  His  coachman  knew  him 
too  well  to  move  at  a  Jehu's  pace  amidst 
such  scenes.  No  funeral  hearse  crept  more 
leisurely  than  did  his  landau  up  the  Canon- 
gate,  and  not  a  queer,  tottering  gable  but 
recalled  to  him  some  long-buried  memory 
of  splendour  or  of  bloodshed."  On  a  lower 
13 


FOOTSTEPS  OF  SCOTT 
level,  and  parallel  to  the  High  Street,  runs 
the  Cowgate,  of  which  Alexander  Alexius, 
Canon  of  St  Andrews,  writing  in  1532,  says 
that  it  contains  "  the  palaces  belonging  to 
the  princes  of  the  realm,  where  there  is 
nothing  mean  or  rustic,  but  all  magnifi- 
cent," —  a  humiliating  reflection  on  the 
present  state  of  matters.  Branching  off 
the  Cowgate  were  a  number  of  smaller 
streets  or  alleys,  one  of  which,  from  being 
the  chief  approach  to  the  Town's  College, 
was  designated  the  College  Wynd.  What 
little  is  left  of  it  has  been  rechristened 
Guthrie  Street,  from  that  prince  of  home- 
missionaries,  Dr  Thomas  Guthrie,  much  of 
whose  noble  slum  w^ork  was  carried  on  in 
this  locality.  A  plain  four-storeyed  house 
standing  at  the  Wynd-head  (to  the  east), 
and  immediately  facing  the  great  gateway 
of  the  College,  was  the  birthplace  of  Scott, 
who  was  born,  it  is  stated,  under  the  same 
roof  as  the  celebrated  Lord  Henderland, 
and  opposite  the  residence  of  Dr  Joseph 
Black,  the  chemist.  Oliver  Goldsmith  had 
14 


MARRIAGE  AND  "THE  MINSTRELSY" 

his  lodging  in  the  College  Wynd  when 
studying  medicine  at  Edinburgh  in  1752, 
and  it  was  through  this  street  that  Boswell 
and  Principal  Robertson  conducted  Dr 
Johnson  on  his  visit  to  the  University, 
when  Scott  was  a  baby.  It  is  many  years 
since  the  last  of  the  old  College  Wynd 
buildings  disappeared,  and  all  that  remains 
to  mark  the  site  (as  nearly  as  possible)  of 
Scott's  birth-house  is  a  neat  tablet  in  the 
wall  of  No.  8  Chambers  Street  (erected  by 
the  Town  Council),  and  recording  the  fact 
that — 

NEAR  THIS 

SPOT  STOOD 

THE   HOUSE 

IN  WHICH 

SIR 

WALTER  SCOTT 

WAS    BORN 

15TH  AUGUST 

1771 

The  College  Wynd  seems  to  have  been  a 
somewhat   unfortunate    habitat    for   the 
Scott  family ;  at  least  six  (seven  is  Scott's 
15 


FOOTSTEPS  OF  SCOTT 
own  statement)  of  its  members  had  died 
in  infancy,  and  the  probability  is  that  Scott 
himself  would  have  succumbed  had  he  re- 
mained in  what  was  fast  becoming  an  un- 
desirable part  of  the  city.  The  rate  of 
infant  mortality  appears  to  have  been  ab- 
normally high  about  this  period,  the  real 
cause  of  the  trouble  being,  it  was  believed, 
the  close  and  damp  character  of  the  nurser- 
ies, which,  in  the  lofty  old  mansions  of  the 
Canongate,  the  College  Wynd,  and  other 
parts,  were,  as  a  rule,  relegated  to  the  sunk 
floors  below  the  level  of  the  street.  And 
the  era  of  fresh  air  and  scientific  drainage 
was  not  yet !  The  time  was  therefore  ripe 
for  a  great  change.  So  at  Scott's  birth 
Edinburgh  was  in  the  transition  stage  be- 
tween the  old  and  the  new  eras.  On  what 
is  now  Princes  Street  some  building  had 
been  begun,  and  the  North  Bridge,  which 
was  to  connect  the  two  wings  of  the  city, 
was  finished  in  1772.  There  were  improve- 
ments in  the  Old  Town  also,  George  Square 
being  built  about  this  time.  It  was  to 
16 


MARRIAGE  AND  "THE  MINSTRELSY" 
Brown's  Square,  part  of  which  may  still  be 
seen  at  the  tof)  of  Chambers  Street,  that, 
as  we  read  in  Redgauntlet,  the  Fairfords 
removed,  Alan  relating  to  his  friend  Darsie 
Latimer  how  "  the  leaving  of  his  old  apart- 
ments in  the  Luckenbooths  was  to  him 
[Fairford  senior]  like  divorcing  the  soul 
from  the  body."  As  a  matter  of  fact,  how- 
ever, it  was  to  George  Square — to  No.  25 — 
that  Saunders  Fairford  (Scott's  father  un- 
der a  thin  disguise)  flitted  a  year  or  two 
following  the  birth  of  Scott,  who  was,  by 
the  way,  the  ninth  child  of  the  family  and 
the  second  Walter,  the  first  having  died  in 
1766. 

Meantime  the  infant  of  the  College 
Wynd  was  like  to  go  the  way  of  his  prede- 
cessors. He  had  barely  reached  his  second 
year  when  a  touch  of  the  hereditary  mal- 
ady (paralysis)  made  its  appearance.  A- 
mong  other  things  it  was  discovered  that 
he  had  lost  the  use  of  his  right  leg,  to  re- 
cover which  not  all  the  skill  of  the  College 
specialists  was  of  avail.  On  their  advice 
2  17 


FOOTSTEPS  OF  SCOTT 
it  was  agreed  to  send  the  child  to  the  coun- 
try, in  the  hope  that  the  open  air  and  the 
natural  exertion  of  his  limbs  might  effect 
a  cure.  He  was  taken  accordingly  to  his 
grandfather's  farm  at  Sandyknowe,  near 
Smailholni,  in  Eoxburghshire  —  the  very 
spot  for  such  as  he.  Here,  after  a  year  or 
two,  to  use  his  own  words,  "I,  who  in  a 
city  had  probably  been  condemned  to  hope- 
less and  helpless  decrepitude,  was  now  a 
healthy,  high-spirited,  and,  my  lameness 
apart,  a  sturdy  child — noyi  shie  diis  ani- 
mosus  infans." 

But  Sandyknowe  did  more  than  set  him 
on  his  legs  again.  He  was  never  quite  cured 
of  his  lameness,  to  be  sure.  Like  one  of  his 
ancestors,  he  was  Walter  the  Lamiter  for 
life,  yet  otherrvise  he  was  anything  but 
lame.  Carlyle's  statement  that  "no  sound- 
er piece  of  British  manhood  was  put  to- 
gether in  that  eighteenth  century  of  Time"' 
owes  its  possibility  to  the  fortunate  sug- 
gestion of  Sandyknowe,  which  was  the 
very  making  of  him  physically  and  ment- 
is  ' 


MARRIAGE  AND  "THE  MINSTRELSY" 

ally.  He  was  sent  to  Sandy knowe  "to  die," 
he  said  years  afterwards.  But  for  that 
dolesome  anticipation  we  might  not  have 
had  the  living,  full-blooded,  full-brained 
Scott  at  all.  There  has  been  some  useless 
talk  about  Scott's  "unfortunate"  lameness. 
Well,  but  for  his  lameness  very  likely  we 
should  have  had  Scott  the  soldier,  fighting 
his  way  under  Wellington  in  the  Napole- 
onic Wars,  instead  of  Scott  the  hardly  less 
intrepid  story-teller — surely  the  happier 
alternative  of  the  two.  It  is  to  this  lucky 
accident  of  the  lameness  that  we  owe  Mar- 
mion  and  Waverley,  just  as  Spain  is  in- 
debted to  the  wound  which  disabled  Cer- 
vantes for  the  conception  of  the  immortal 
Don  Quixote. 

It  was  at  Sandyknowe  that  Scott  awoke 
to  the  first  consciousness  of  existence — 
swathed  in  the  skin  of  a  newly-slain  sheep, 
and  crawling  along  the  floor  after  a  watch 
dangled  by  his  kinsman.  Sir  George  Mak- 
dougall  of  Makerstoun.  All  sorts  of  nos- 
trums were  suggested  as  a  cure,  but  noth- 
19 


FOOTSTEPS  OF  SCOTT 
ing  did  him  so  much  good  as  being  carried 
out  to  the  hillside  and  allowed  the  free 
scope  of  his  limbs — to  kick  and  roll  as  he 
liked  on  the  green  sward,  with  the  wonder- 
ing sheep  and  lambs  nibbling  beside  him. 
He  had  the  most  faithful  of  attendants  in 
auld  Sandy  Ormiston,  the  shepherd,  or 
"cow-bailie,"  as  Lockhart  styles  him — a 
veritable  Tom  Purdie  of  his  boyhood,  to 
whom  the  world  owes  more  than  it  wots 
of.  For  was  it  not  pretty  much  through 
the  medium  of  this  "  aged  hind  "  that  the 
Muse  of  Poetry  and  Romance  found  Scott 
and  claimed  him  for  her  own  ? 

"  Here  was  poetic  impulse  given 
By  the  green  hill  and  clear  blue  heaven." 

Sandyknowe  was  truly  "meet  nurse  for  a 
poetic  child,"  "a  sweet-tempered  bairn,"  "a 
darling  with  all  about  the  house."  An  at- 
mosphere of  romance  pervaded  the  place. 
How  otherwise  could  it  be  with  the  prox- 
imity of  so  many  spots  famous  in  Border 
story,  and  not  least  the  overshadowing 
presence  of  that  stern  old  f  ortlet  of  Smail- 
20 


MARRIAGE  AND  "THE  MINSTRELSY" 

holm  (or  Sandyknowe),  looking  out,  the 

long  years  through, 

"  Over  Tweed's  fair  flood  and  Mertoun's  wood 
And  all  down  Teviotdale  " — 

over  the  wide  plain  and  the  blue  hills  that 
had  seen  so  many  battles  and  Border  frays? 
Let  us  remember  also  the  happy  fellowships 
of  the  farm-house — his  grandparents,  Ro- 
bert Scott  and  Barbara  Haliburton,  and  his 
"kind  and  affectionate  Aunt  Janet,"  all  of 
whose  share  in  the  "making"  of  the  future 
Minstrel  can  never  be  forgotten.  It  was 
Aunt  Janet  who  taught  him  to  "read  braw- 
ly,"  to  spout  Hardyknute  (not  for  the  deav- 
ing  of  the  parish  minister,  however),  and 
to  "spell"  the  lines  of  old  Satchells'  rhym- 
ing True  History  of  several  Honourable 
Farnilies  of  the  Right  Honourable  Name  of 
Scot,  one  of  the  first  books  he  ever  attempt- 
ed— in  his  fourth  year  no  less.  Never  was 
there  a  clearer  case  of  environment  (and 
heredity)  shaping  a  man's  future.  One  hes- 
itates to  think  how  easily  might  any  other 
surrounding  have  given  us  an  altogether 
21 


FOOTSTEPS      OF      SCOTT 

different   Scott,  as  he  himself  suggests! 
There  is,  at  all  events,  no  question  that  in 
Sandyknowe  we  have  the  fons  et  origo  of 
the  Minstrelsy  and  the  best  of  the  verse- 
romances.   Scott's  attachment  to  the  place 
is  seen  in  his  letters  and  conversations,  and 
in  his  frequent  visits  in  after  life,  above 
all  in  the  vs^ell-known  lines  in  the  Intro- 
duction to  the  third  canto  of  Marmion — a 
record  and  an  apologia  which  must  be 
quoted,  hackneyed  though  it  is : — 
"  Thus  while  I  ape  the  measure  wild 
Of  tales  that  charm'd  me  yet  a  child, 
Rude  though  they  be,  stiU  with  the  cliime 
Return  the  thoughts  of  early  time  ; 
And  feelings,  roused  in  life's  first  day, 
Glow  in  the  line,  and  prompt  the  lay. 
Then  rise  those  crags,  that  mountain  tower. 
Which  charm'd  my  fancy's  wakening  hour. 

It  was  a  barren  scene,  and  wild, 
Where  naked  cUfTs  were  rudely  piled ; 
But  ever  and  anon  between 
Lay  velvet  tufts  of  loveliest  green  ; 
And  well  the  lonely  infant  knew 
Recesses  where  the  wall-flower  grew, 
And  honey-suckle  loved  to  crawl 
Up  the  low  crag  and  ruin'd  waU. 
22 


SANDY  KNO WE   TOWER 

From  a  water-colour  drawing  by 
TOM  SCOTT,   U.S.A. 


Then  rise  those  crags,  that  mountain  tower 
Which  charm' d  my  fancy's  wakening  hour. 
Though  no  broad  river  swept  along. 
To  claim,  perchance,  heroic  son^ ; 
Though  sigh'd  no  graves  in  summer  gale, 
To  prompt  of  love  a  softer  tale  ; 
Though  scarce  a  pu?iy  streamlet's  speed 
Claim' d  homage  from  a  shepherds  reed  ; 
Yet  was  poetic  impulse  given 
By  the  green  hill  and  clear  blue  heaven." 
SCOTT. 


MARRIAGE  AND  "THE  MINSTRELSY" 

I  deem'd  such  nooks  the  sweetest  shade 

The  sun  in  all  its  round  survey 'd ; 

And  still  I  thought  that  shatter'd  tower 

The  mightiest  work  of  human  power ; 

And  marvell'd  as  the  aged  hind 

With  some  strange  tale  hewitch'd  my  mind. 

Of  forayers,  who,  with  headlong  force, 

Down  from  that  strength  had  spurr'd  their  horse, 

Their  southern  rapine  to  renew. 

Far  in  the  distant  Cheviots  blue, 

And,  home  returning,  fill'd  the  hall 

With  revel,  wassel-rout,  and  brawl. 

Methought  that  still  with  trump  and  clang 

The  gateway's  broken  arches  rang ; 

Methought  grim  features,  seam'd  with  scars, 

Glar'd  through  the  window's  rusty  bars, 

And  ever,  by  the  winter  hearth, 

Old  tales  I  heard  of  woe  or  mti-th, 

Of  lovers'  shghts,  of  ladies'  charms, 

Of  witches'  spells,  of  warriors'  arms ; 

Of  patriot  battles,  won  of  old 

By  Wallace  wight  and  Bruce  the  bold  ; 

Of  later  fields  of  feud  and  fight 

When,  pouring  from  their  Highland  height. 

The  Scottish  clans,  in  headlong  sway, 

Had  swept  the  scarlet  ranks  away." 

That  Scott  should  catch  the  afflatus  of 
the  Border  Country  was  in  the  fitness  of 
things.    The  Border  had  been  the  home- 
23 


FOOTSTEPS      OF      SCOTT 

laud  of  his  ancestors  for  ininiemorial  gen- 
erations. There  was  scarcely  one  of  its 
families  with  which  he  could  not  count 
kin,  from  Buccleuch  himself  to  the  "  bauld 
Rutherfords,"  the  Merse  Swintons,  the 
Haliburtons,  the  Makdougalls,  and  others. 
"There  are  few  in  Scotland  under  the  titled 
nobility,"  says  Lockhart,  "who  could  trace 
their  blood  to  so  many  stocks  of  historical 
distinction."  Genealogically,  Scott  was  the 
son  of  a  grandson  of  the  first  Scott  of  Rae- 
burn,  who  came  from  the  third  Scott  of 
Harden,  who  came  from  a  younger  son  of 
the  Scotts  of  Sinton,  who  came  from  the 
Bold  Buccleuch.  His  greatest  pride  was 
the  Harden  pedigree,  which  took  him  back 
to  the  indomitable  Auld  Wat,  the  most 
picturesque  figure  of  Border  balladry,  and 
his  fair  dame,  no  less  famous,  the  "Flower 
of  Yarrow,"  names  which,  as  he  says,  he 
"made  to  ring  in  many  a  ditty."  When 
the  last  bullock  driven  from  the  English 
pastures  was  consumed,  it  was  Mary  Scott 
who  set  before  the  assembled  guests  a  pair 
24 


MARRIAGE  AND  "THE  MINSTRELSY" 

of  clean  spurs  as  a  broad  hint  that  they 
must  bestir  themselves  if  they  would  eat. 
Midway  between  Auld  Wat's  day  and  his 
own,  lived  "Beardie,"  that  dour,  unbend- 
ing Jacobite,  whose  enthusiasm  for  an  ill- 
fated  cause  lost  him  his  lands  and  won  the 
cognomen  by  which  posterity  best  remem- 
bers him,  from  the  mad  resolve  never  to 
cut  his  beard  (like  Dalziel  of  Binns)  till  the 
Stuarts  were  restored.  He  reminds  us  of 
the  Highlander  who,  having  shaken  hands 
with  Prince  Charlie,  exclaimed,  "Whilst 
I  live,  this  hand  of  mine  will  never  touch 
water."  It  was  Beardie's  second  son  — 
Scott's  grandfather  —  a  "stickit"  sailor, 
who  blossomed  into  the  Sandyknowe 
tacksman,  and  whose  eldest  son,  Walter 
Scott,  an  Edinburgh  Writer  to  the  Signet, 
became  the  father  of  our  Sir  Walter.  On 
his  mother's  side — a  Rutherford — he  had 
for  great-grandfather  the  first  minister  of 
Yarrow  after  the  Revolution ;  for  grand- 
father, John  Rutherford,  Professor  of  the 
Practice  of  Medicine  at  Edinburgh;  and 


FOOTSTEPS  OF  SCOTT 
for  mother,  the  clever  and  kindly,  if  not 
particularly  comely,  Anne  Rutherford. 

Though  Sandyknowe  stands  for  so  much 
in  the  career  of  Scott,  one  fears  that  the 
place  is  too  little  regarded  in  these  days  of 
shrine-hunting.  How  many,  for  instance, 
can  locate  the  scene  of  that  delightful 
picture  just  quoted?  The  spot  is  off  the 
beaten  track,  to  be  sure,  but  none  too  far, 
for  Melrose  is  only  seven  miles  away,  Kel- 
so six,  and  Earlston  a  like  distance,  and 
from  all  these  towns  driving  facilities  are 
plentiful.  Sandyknowe,  Scott's  cradling- 
ground  in  the  sphere  of  poetry,  waits  to 
be  popularised,  and  we  hope  to  see  some- 
thing done  before  long.  Assuredly,  one 
cannot  be  said  to  know  the  Scott-Land  if 
the  scenery  of  some  of  the  best  of  the  for- 
mative years  be  overlooked.  For  here 
Scott  lived  (a  twelvemonth  excepted)  from 
his  third  to  his  eighth  year,  a  period  that 
means  a  great  deal  in  the  life  of  a  boy,  es- 
pecially a  boy  of  Scott's  stamp.  The  origin- 
al farm-house — the  "thatched  mansion" 
26 


MARRIAGE  AND  "THE  MINSTRELSY" 

of  3Iarmio7i — has  long  since  disappeared. 
Tradition  points  to  its  site  (it  was  a  mere 
cottage)  at  the  north-east  end  of  the  mod- 
ern steading,  but  nothing  remains  to  show 
that  the  site  had  ever  been  occupied  by  a 
dwelling.  The  landscape  is  virtually  the 
same,  with  a  greater  woodland  profusion 
perhaps.  Here  is  the  lochan  of  The  Abbot, 
crowned  by  the  crags  and  the  old  grey  peel 
(scene  of  the  Eve  of  St  John)  which  has 
withstood  the  assaults  and  storms  of  prob- 
ably seven  hundred  years,  and  is  still  in 
tolerable  preservation — is  thought,  indeed, 
to  be  the  most  perfect  relic  of  a  feudal 
building  in  the  South  of  Scotland. 

Visits  to  Bath  "for  the  waters,"  and  to 
Prestonpans  "  for  sea-bathing,"  come  with- 
in the  Sandyknowe  period.  A  relic  of  the 
Bath  visit  is  the  first  extant  portrait  of 
Scott — the  ivory  miniature  still  to  be  seen 
in  the  Scottish  National  Portrait  Gallery, 
of  which  that  at  Abbotsf  ord  is  a  replica. 
It  is  interesting  to  note  the  characteristic- 
ally tall  forehead,  the  frank  and  eager  air, 
27 


FOOTSTEPS      OF      SCOTT 

and  the  profile,  "  wonderfully  like  what  it 
was  to  the  last,"  says  Lockhart.  At  Pres- 
tonpans  he  made  the  acquaintance  of  a 
veteran,  the  original  of  the  deathless  Dal- 
getty,  and  of  George  Constable,  in  part  the 
prototype  of  Monkbarns  in  The  Antiquary, 
"  the  first  person  who  told  me  about  Fal- 
staff  and  Hotspur." 

The  Sandyknowe  homestead  was  now 
broken  up  by  the  death  of  his  grandfather, 
old  Mrs  Scott  and  her  daughter  removing 
to  Kelso,  to  a  house  close  by  the  Tweed  and 
Kelso  Bridge,  known  to-day  as  Waver- 
ley  Lodge.  He  was  now  considered  well 
enough  to  live  with  his  father  at  George 
Square,  which  was  his  settled  residence  for 
the  next  nineteen  years.  Homer  he  read 
at  home  (in  Pope's  version)  along  with  the 
Border  ballads  and  Allan  Ramsay's  Ever- 
green, and  on  Sundays,  "to  relieve  the 
gloom  of  one  dull  sermon  succeeding  on 
another,"  Bunyan's  Pilgrim  and  Gessner's 
Death  ofAbeU    In  October  1778  he  entered 

^  It  is  worth  noting  that  Salomon  Gessner's  (German  j)as- 
28 


MARRIAGE  AND  "  THE  MINSTRELSY  " 

the  old  Edinburgh  High  School  (the  old 
City  Hospital).  Luke  Eraser  was  his  first 
preceptor,  and  by  and  by  he  passed  into 
the  hands  of  the  Rector,  Dr  Adam  the 
Latinist.  He  speaks  of  himself  as  "  glanc- 
ing like  a  meteor  from  the  bottom  to  the 
top  of  the  form."  But  his  verse  transla- 
tions (of  Horace  and  Virgil)  were  picked 
out  for  praise,  and  Dr  Adam  called  him 
"  the  historian  of  the  class,"  showing  that 
Scott  during  his  schooldays  was  not  the 
dunce  of  a  popular  misconception.  And 
withal,  he  was  "  a  bonnie  f echter,"  daring 
the  "kittle  nine-steps"  on  the  narrow  ledge 
of  the  Castle  Rock,  helping  to  "  man  the 
Cowgate  Port"  in  snowball  fights,  and 
taking  part  in  the  frequent  "bickers"  a- 
gainst  the  town  boys,  which  he  describes  in 
the  anecdote  of  Green-breeks.  A  turn  of  ill- 
health  sent  him  to  Kelso  in  1783,  where,  at 
his  aunt's,  and  at  Rosebank,  the  home  of  a 
bachelor  seafaring  uncle,  Captain  Robert 

toral  poet)  Death  of  Abel  (Tod  Abels),  a  kind  of  heroic  prose 
poem,  first  published  in  1758,  was  reprinted  at  Kelso  in  1783 

29 


FOOTSTEPS      OF      SCOTT 

Scott,  much  of  his  boyhood  was  spent.  We 
see  the  "making"  of  him  at  Kelso,  "the 
most  beautiful,  if  not  the  most  romantic, 
village  in  Scotland."  The  meeting  of  two 
such  rivers  as  Tweed  and  Teviot,  both  fa- 
mous in  song ;  the  Abbey  ruins ;  the  re- 
mains of  Roxburgh  Castle;  the  palatial 
Floors  Castle ;  and  several  other  spots  of 
note  in  the  neighbourhood,  are  still  Kelso's 
chief  attractions.  But  it  must  be  said  that 
the  beauty  of  the  place  has  been  vastly 
heightened  since  Scott's  halcyon  boyhood. 
At  the  Kelso  Grammar  School  (adjoining 
the  Abbey,  and  long  demolished)  Scott 
learned  more  Latin;  was  usher  to  that  para- 
gon of  Scots  dominies,  Lancelot  Whale;  met 
James  and  John  Ballantyne,  and  became 
story-teller  in  embryo.  From  Kelso  the  first 
of  the  "  raids  "  (to  Norham,  Flodden,  Otter- 
burn,  etc.)  must  also  be  dated,  as  well  as  the 
inception  of  the  Minstrelsy,  following  that 
historic  perusal  of  Percy's  Reliques,  "  when 
the  summer  day  sped  onward  so  fast  that, 
notw^ithstanding  the  sharp  appetite  of  thir- 
30 


MARRIAGE  AND  "THE  MINSTRELSY" 

teen,  I  forgot  the  hour  of  dinner,  was  sought 
for  with  anxiety,  and  was  found  still  en- 
tranced in  my  intellectual  banquet."  In  his 
thirteenth  year  Scott  matriculated  at  the 
College  of  Edinburgh.  At  fifteen  he  was  in- 
dentured to  his  father,  and  "  entered  upon 
the  dry  and  barren  wilderness  of  forms  and 
conveyances."  At  sixteen  he  saw  the  High- 
lands for  the  first  time,  and  met  Stuart  of 
Invernahyle,  who  had  measured  swords 
with  Rob  Roy,  and  been  "  out "  with  Mar 
and  with  "Chairlie."  It  was  about  this 
time,  too,  that  he  had  his  memorable  inter- 
view with  Burns  at  Sciennes  Hill  House 
(still  standing  at  Braid  Place,  Edinburgh). 
"I  saw  him  one  day,"  he  writes,  "at  the 
late  venerable  Professor  Ferguson's,  where 
there  were  several  gentlemen  of  literary 
reputation,  among  whom  I  remember  the 
celebrated  Mr  Dugald  Stewart.  Of  course 
we  youngsters  [young  Adam  Ferguson,  his 
bosom  friend,  was  the  other]  sat  silent, 
looked  and  listened.  The  only  thing  I  re- 
member which  was  remarkable  in  Burns's 
3] 


FOOTSTEPS      OF      SCOTT 
manner  was  the  effect  produced  upon  him 
by  a  print  of  Bunbury's,  representing  a 
soldier  lying  dead  on  the  snow,  his  dog 
sitting  in  misery  on  the  one  side,  on  the 
other  his  widow,  with  a  child  in  her  arms. 
These  lines  were  written  beneath : — 
"  Cold  on  Canadian  Hills,  or  Minden  plain, 
Perhaps  ye  Parent  wept  her  Soldier  Slain  ; 
Bent  o'er  her  Babe,  her  Ej-es  dissolved  in  dew, 
The  big  drops  mingling  with  the  Millc  he  drew. 
Sad  MournfnU  presage  of  his  future  years 
The  Child  of  Misery  Baptized  in  tears."  ^ 

Burns  seemed  much  affected  by  the  print, 
or  rather  the  ideas  which  it  suggested  to 
his  mind.  He  actually  shed  tears.  He  asked 
whose  the  lines  were,  and  it  chanced  that 

^  This  identical  print — a  little  brown  daub  entitled  "Afflic- 
tion " — is  now  to  be  seen  in  the  Museum  of  the  Chambers 
Institution  at  Peebles.  Sir  Adam  Ferguson  presented  it  to 
Robert  Chambers,  on  whose  death  it  passed  to  his  brother 
William,  and  was  in  turn  bequeathed  by  him  to  the  Institute 
which  he  founded  in  his  native  town.  The  lines  quoted  above 
are  exactly  as  they  stand  on  the  picture.  It  will  be  seen 
that  they  vary  slightly  from  the  version  given  in  every  bio- 
graphy of  Scott.  John  Langhorne,  curiously,  wrote  his 
poem  The  Country  Justice  at  the  request  of  a  Richard  Burn. 
Bunbury's  print,  published  by  W.  Dickinson,  London,  bears 
the  date  1783,  and  the  name  Langhorne,  oddly  enough,  ap- 
pears— though  in  smaller  type — as  the  author  of  the  stanza. 

32 


MARRIAGE  AND  "THE  MINSTRELSY ^^ 

nobody  but  myself  remembered  that  they 
occur  in  a  half -forgotten  poem  of  Lang- 
horne's,  called  by  the  unpromising  title  of 
'  The  Justice  of  the  Peace.'  I  whispered  my 
information  to  a  friend  present,  who  men- 
tioned it  to  Burns,  who  rewarded  me  with 
a  look  and  a  word,  which,  though  of  mere 
civility,  I  then  received,  and  still  recollect, 
with  very  great  pleasure." 

It  is  stated  that  the  "word"  which  Scott 
suppressed  was,  "You'll  be  a  man  yet, 
sir!" 

They  never  met  again,  though,  casually, 
Scott  saw  Burns  examining  a  bookstall  in 
Parliament  Square.  And,  according  to 
Constable,  who  spent  an  evening  with 
Burns  in  1792,  the  bard  told  him  how  he 
"had  been  struck  with  the  wonderful 
powers  of  young  Scott,  and  prognosticated 
his  future  greatness." 

On  the  11th  of  July  1792  (before  he  had 
completed  his  twenty-first  year),  along  with 
his  friend  Will  Clerk,  he  was — not  credit- 
less — called  to  the  Bar,  or,  more  technically, 
33  3 


FOOTSTEPS  OF  SCOTT 
admitted  a  member  of  the  Faculty  of  Ad- 
vocates. 

At  nineteen  Scott  was  in  love.  Scott's 
love-making  belongs  unquestionably  to  the 
most  romantic  period  of  his  life.  We  can- 
not, however,  stay  to  discuss  the  pros  and 
cons  of  the  affair.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  for 
at  least  six  years  he  courted  (somewhat 
bashfully)  Miss  Williamina  (not  Margaret, 
as  Lockhart  has  it  in  the  abridged  Life) 
Belsches,  with  every  good  prospect,  as  he 
imagined,  until  suddenly  his  proposals  were 
rejected.  The  lady  soon  afterwards  married 
William  Forbes,  Younger  of  Pitsligo.^  The 
secret  of  her  strangely  capricious  treatment 
of  Scott  has  never  been  revealed.  Thereisno 

*  Miss  Belsches  (b.  Oct.  1776)  was  the  only  child  of  Sir  John 
Wishart  Belsches  (afterwards,  by  Royal  licence,  Stuart),  Bart., 
of  Fettercairn,  by  his  marriage  with  Lady  Jane  Leslie,  eldest 
daughter  of  the  sixth  Earl  of  Leven  and  Melville.  Sir  William 
Stuart  Forbes,  Bart.,  of  Pitsligo  and  Fettercairn,  was  the  son 
of  Sir  William,  the  celebrated  Scottish  banker,  and  biographer 
of  Beattie  the  Minstrel.  John  Hay  Forbes,  Lord  Medwyn,was 
his  brother,  and  his  sister  was  the  wife  of  Scott's  lifelong 
friend,  James  Skene  of  Rubislaw.  Principal  James  David 
Forbes,  the  physicist,  was  the  youngest  son  of  Sir  William 
and  Lady  (Williamina)  Forbes.  The  latter  died  in  1810, 
34 


MARRIAGE  AND  "THE  MINSTRELSY" 
doubt  that  Scottwas  madlyin love, and  that 
scarcely  any blow^  so  staggered  him.  He  felt 
it  practically  all  his  life,  and  many  passages 
in  the  poems  and  novels  were  most  surely 
inspired  by  the  haunting  remembrance  of 
this  his  first  love.  In  Rokehy,  for  instance, 
Matilda,  the  heroine  of  the  poem,  is  a  vivid 
description  of  the  person  of  his  beloved. 
The  parting  of  Frank  Osbaldistone  and  Di 
Vernon  near  the  Fords  of  Frew,  and  the 
opening  words  of  the  twelfth  chapter  of 
Peveril,  are  equally  applicable  to  the  pair 
and  the  circumstances.  Indeed,  as  Keble 
points  out,  it  was  his  "  early  love's  image 
haunting  Scott  all  his  life  long  that  was 
the  true  well-spring  of  inspiration  in  all  his 
minstrelsy  and  romance." 

But,  spite  of  all,  his  heart,  as  he  tells  us, 
was  "handsomely  pieced  again"  though  the 
"crack  "remained.  It  was  on  Christmas  Eve 
of  1797,  within  St  Mary's  Church  at  Carlisle, 
now  merged  in  the  Cathedral,  that  he  led  to 
the  altar  Miss  Margaret  Charlotte  Char- 
pen  tier.   Miss  Carpenter  (as  the  name  was 


FOOTSTEPS  OF  SCOTT 
Anglicised)  was  of  French  extraction,  the 
daughter  of  Jean  Charpentier,  a  royalist  of 
Lyons,  Ecuyer  du  Roi,  and  of  Charlotte 
Volere,  who  was  connected  with  one  of  the 
old  houses.  Scott's  description  of  his  bride 
— "  a  brunette  as  dark  as  a  blackberry,  but 
her  person  and  face  very  engaging  " — com- 
pares well  with  the  miniature  at  Abbots- 
ford,  painted  shortly  before  marriage.  "  A 
lovelier  vision,  as  all  who  remember  her  in 
the  bloom  of  her  days  have  assured  me, 
could  hardly  have  been  imagined,"  sums  up 
Lockhart's  account  of  her.  Scott  met  her  at 
Gilsland,  a  popular  Cumberland  Spa.  The 
Gilslanders  still  point  out  the  "Popping- 
Stone"  where  the  fateful  question  was 
put,  and  the  "Kissing-Thorn"  beneath 
whose  branches  the  compact  was  sealed, 
after  a  courtship  not  exceeding  in  months 
the  number  of  years  of  his  previous  ven- 
ture. 

Long   honeymoons   were   unknown   in 
Scott's  time,  and  on  the  day  following  his 
marriage  he  brought  his  bride  by  coach  to 
36 


MARRIAGE  AND  "  THE  MINSTRELSY  " 

Edinburgh,  first  to  lodgings  at  108  George 
Street,  from  which  they  afterwards  re- 
moved to  10  South  Castle  Street,  and  next 
to  39  North  Castle  Street,  the  most  famous 
of  all  the  Edinburgh  houses  occupied  by  Sir 
Walter.i  Here  he  lived  till  1826,  the  dark 
year  of  his  life,  which  witnessed  the  death 
of  Lady  Scott  and  the  almost  paralysing 
failure  of  his  financial  affairs.  They  had  a 
summer  house  also,  at  Lasswade,  seven 
miles  south-east  of  the  city,  by  "Eske's  fair 
streams  that  run,"  where  six  of  the  happiest 
seasons  of  their  married  life  were  spent. 
The  house,  called  Lasswade  Cottage,  is  en- 

'  39  Castle  Street,  occupied  by  a  firm  of  lawyers,  is  practi- 
cally unchanged  since  Scott's  time.  The  room  in  which  he 
wrote  (the  "den  "),  and  at  the  window  of  which  Lockhart  had 
the  vision  of  "the  hand,"  is  absolutely  unchanged,  except, 
ofcourse,  for  its  furnishings.  So,  too,  is  the  dining-room.  The 
bedrooms  are  turned  into  oflBces,  and  the  stone  stairs  are  not 
without  their  own  memories.  Some  alterations  on  the  neigh- 
bouring buildings  have  spoiled  the  view  both  back  and  front, 
butotherwise  the  house  is  exactly  as  it  was.  Some  interesting 
letters  of  Scott  with  reference  to  the  property  are  in  posses- 
sion of  the  present  owner.  At  39  most  of  the  Waverleys 
were  written  and  much  of  Scott's  best  work  done.  It  is 
thus,  as  has  already  been  said,  Scott's  truest  Edinburgh 
memorial. 

37 


FOOTSTEPS  OF  SCOTT 
larged  somewhat,  but  retains  its  old  circu- 
lar-looking appearance  and  curious  conical 
thatched  roof,  which,  but  for  its  association 
with  Scott,  might  long  ago  have  been  sup- 
planted by  one  of  slate. 

Lasswade's  surroundings  made  a  very 
happy  appeal  to  the  heart  of  Scott.  It  is 
probably  the  "  Gandercleuch  "  referred  to 
in  the  preface  of  the  Tales  of  my  Landlord. 
In  an  arched  aisle  of  the  parish  church  re- 
pose the  remains  of  the  poet  Drummond  of 
Hawthornden,  "the  Scottish  Petrarch,"  to 
whom  a  memorial  was  erected  in  1893. 

"Here  Damon  lies,  whose  songs  did  sometime  grace 
The  murmuring  Esk — may  roses  shade  the  place  !  " 

The  Esk  flows  near.  "  Classic  Hawthorn- 
den" itself  is  at  hand,  where  in  the  winter 
of  1618-19  Drummond  entertained  Ben  Jon- 
son,  who  came  on  foot  all  the  way  from  Lon- 
don to  see  him.  Roslin  Castle  (a  ruin)  and 
Chapel,  an  "unfinished  thought  in  stone" 
(still  a  place  of  worship,  the  supposed  En- 
gaddi  of  The  Talisman),  are  in  the  neigh- 
38 


MARRIAGE  AND  "THE  MINSTRELSY" 

bourhood,  the  latter  containing  the  exqui- 
sitely sculptured  Prentice  Pillar  (probably 
Prince's),  around  which  has  grown  the  well- 
known  myth  of  the  apprentice  being  a  bet- 
ter man  than  his  master. 

But  the  true  interest  of  Lasswade  as  a  bit 
of  the  Scott  Land  lies  in  the  fact  that  here 
Scott  commenced  the  craft  of  authorship, 
excepting,  of  course,  his  Biirger  transla- 
tions, The  Chase,  and  William  and  Helen, 
published  in  1796 — a  complete  failure.  Ear- 
ly in  1799  he  published  a  translation  of  Goe- 
the's tragedy,  Goetz  of  Berlichingen  With 
the  Iron  Hand,  and  composed  some  original 
ballads,  mostly  in  imitation  of  the  ancient 
Scottish  measure,  such  as  the  Eve  of  St 
John  (a  Sandyknowe  legend — really  Irish, 
however),  with  Glenfinlas,  and  The  Gray 
Brother,  in  the  latter  of  which  we  get  a 
beautiful  little  picture  of  Lasswade  and  its 
surroundings : — 

"  Sweet  are  the  paths,  O  passing  sweet ! 
By  Eske's  fair  streams  that  run, 
O'er  airy  steep,  through  copsewood  deep, 
Impervious  to  the  sun. 

39 


FOOTSTEPS      OF      SCOTT 

There  the  rapt  poet's  step  may  rove, 

And  yield  the  muse  the  day  ; 
There  Beauty,  led  by  timid  Love, 

May  shun  the  tell-tale  ray ; 

From  that  fair  dome,  where  suit  is  paid 

By  blast  of  bugle  free. 
To  Auchendinny's  hazel  glade 

And  haunted  Woodhouselee. 

Who  knows  not  Melville's  beechy  grove 

And  Roslin's  rocky  glen, 
Dalkeith,  which  all  the  virtues  love, 

And  classic  Hawthornden  ?  " 


The  "fair  dome"  was  Penicuik  House,  the 
home  of  Scott's  bosom  friend.  Will  Clerk. 
At  Auchendinny  lived  Henry  Mackenzie, 
"the  Man  of  Feeling,"  the  doyen  of  Scottish 
literature,  to  whom  Scott  dedicated  Wav- 
erley.  Woodhouselee,  a  seat  of  the  Fraser- 
Tytlers,  was  the  reputed  haunt  of  a  lady  in 
white  with  a  child  in  her  arms — the  ghost 
of  Hamilton  of  Bothwellhaugh's  wife  and 
her  new-born  babe,  both  of  whom  perished 
in  consequence  of  being  driven  out  of  doors 
on  a  winter  night  under  instructions  from 
the  Regent  Moray.  Hamilton's  revenge  on 
40 


MARRIAGE  AND  "THE  MINSTRELSY  ' 
Moray  forms  the  theme  of  Scott's  fine  bal- 
lad, Cadyow  Castle.  Near  Lasswade  are 
Melville  Castle,  the  baronial  pile  of  the 
statesman  Henry  Dundas,  Viscount  Mel- 
ville, to  whom  Scott  owed  so  much,  and 
Dalkeith  House,  the  seat  of  his  chieftain, 
the  Duke  of  Buccleuch. 

But  the  Minstrelsy  was  the  w^ork  by 
which  Scott  first  leapt  into  fame.  No  book, 
he  says,  afforded  so  much  pleasure  in  its 
composition,  nor  can  it  be  doubted  that  in 
making  it,  Scott  was  virtually  making  him- 
self as  a  writer  and  romancist.  He  was  a 
balladist  from  his  boyhood.  Only  for  his 
being  "ordered  South"  to  Sandy kno we  and 
the  Border — one  of  the  supremely  fortu- 
nate accidents  of  history — we  may  not 
have  had  the  Minstrelsy,  or  the  more  mag- 
nificent succession  of  Waverley.  Practical- 
ly all  his  future  (as  has  already  been  hinted) 
lay  in  the  wake  of  that  early  environment. 
The  peat -fires  and  the  summer  hills  of 
Sandyknowe  were  the  two  factors  which 
combined  to  give  us  Walter  Scott  as  we 
41 


FOOTSTEPS      OF      SCOTT 

best  know  him.  Whatever  may  be  said  to 
the  contrary,  the  Minstrelsy  was  Scott's 
day-dream  as  a  boy.  He  may  not  have  ex- 
pressed himself  in  so  many  words,  but  the 
fascination  held  him  and  haunted  him  all 
through  the  years  of  youth,  and  there  is 
ample  evidence  of  an  ambition  to  link  his 
name  with  the  legendary  lore  of  the  coun- 
try as  emphatically  as  Bishop  Percy  and 
other  delvers  in  the  same  field.  Soon  after 
being  called  to  the  Bar,  he  began  the  work 
of  collecting  and  collating  the  various  bal- 
lad versions  which  crossed  his  path.  In 
company  with  Robert  Shortreed,  most  ge- 
nial of  Sheriff-Substitutes  (of  Roxburgh- 
shire), he  made  an  annual  holiday,  or 
"raid,"  as  he  loved  to  call  it,  into  one  of 
the  lonesomest,  and  at  that  time  most  in- 
accessible, districts  of  the  Border.  Liddes- 
dale,  the  southernmost  half  of  Roxburgh- 
shire, was  practically  an  unknown  land — 
"like  some  unkenned-of  isle  ayont  New 
Holland,"  as  in  some  respects  it  still  is,  for 
the  more  central  parts  of  the  Border  at 
42 


MARRIAGE  AND  "  THE  MINSTRELSY  " 

least.  Saturated  with  old-world  memories, 
the  last  haunt  of  the  balladists,  a  peel  crum- 
bling in  every  glen,  it  was  Scott's  happy 
hunting-ground  for  no  fewer  than  seven 
seasons  in  succession.  He  probably  never 
enjoyed  himself  as  much  in  his  life  as  dur- 
ing those  expeditions.  Lockhart  certainly 
thinks  so,  and  humorously  details  some  of 
the  travellers'  experiences  as  they  passed 
"  from  the  shepherd's  hut  to  the  minister's 
manse,  and  again  from  the  cheerful  hospi- 
tality of  the  manse  to  the  rough  and  jolly 
welcome  of  the  homestead,  gathering  wher- 
ever they  went  songs  and  tunes,  and  occa- 
sionally more  tangible  relics  of  antiquity." 
Shortreed's  words,  years  afterwards,  are 
perhaps  more  expressive  :  "  Eh  me !  sic  an 
endless  fund  o'  humour  and  drollery  as  he 
then  had  wi'  him.  Never  ten  yards  but  we 
were  either  laughing,  or  roaring,  or  sing- 
ing. Wherever  we  stopped,  how  bravely 
he  suited  himsel'  to  everybody !  He  aye  did 
as  the  lave  did;  never  made  himsel'  the 
great  man,  or  took  ony  airs  [put  on  airs]  in 


FOOTSTEPS      OF      SCOTT 

the  company.  I've  seen  him  in  a'  moods  on 
these  jaunts,  grave  and  gay,  daft  and  seri- 
ous, sober  and  drunk — this,  however,  even 
in  our  wildest  rambles,  was  but  rare — but, 
drunk  or  sober,  he  was  aye  the  gentleman." 
Nor  must  we  forget  the  golden  days  among 
the  Yarrow  and  Ettrick  uplands — the  true 
Ballad  Country  of  the  Borders  which  yield- 
ed so  much  excellent  fruit.  Three  names 
dear  to  every  Scott-lover,  and  to  every  Bor- 
derer, and  no  less  dear  for  their  own  sakes, 
appear  on  the  scene  at  this  juncture — Will- 
iam Laidlaw,  James  Hogg,  and  John  Ley- 
den.  The  first  of  these,  the  "  dear  Willie  "  of 
the  Abbotsford  days,  Scott's  friend,  after- 
wards his  amanuensis,  is  one  of  the  most 
lovable  characters  in  literary  biography. 
Laidlaw  was  born  at  Blackhouse  in  the  en- 
chanted Vale  of  Yarrow,  and  to  Black- 
house  came  Scott  on  one  of  his  ballad- 
hunting  excursions.  Laidlaw  told  him  a- 
bout  James  Hogg,  over  at  Ettrick — a  poet, 
and  an  enthusiast  on  the  subject — whom 
Scott  at  once  resolved  to  see.  The  date  of 
44 


YARROW 

From  a  ivater-colour  drawing  by 
TOM  SCOTT,   R.S.A. 


'  By  Ynrmv's  straun  still  let  me  sfray, 
Though  none  should  guide  my  feeble  way." 

SCOTT. 


MARRIAGE  AND  "  THE  MINSTRELSY  " 

the  first  meeting  between  Scott  and  the 
Shepherd  was  the  year  1802.^ 

From  Hogg's  mother,  a  perfect  reposit- 
ory of  the  traditions  of  Ettrickside  and  the 
Border  Country  generally,  Scott  obtained 
more  than  one  gem  for  his  collection,  not- 
ahly  Auld  Maitland.  Visits  to  Ettrickhall — 
the  Hogg  homestead  (now  extinct) — be- 
came frequent  enough,  and  old  Mrs  Hogg  is 
said  to  have  rallied  Scott  on  the  completion 
of  his  work:  "There  was  never  ane  o'  my 
sangs  prentit  till  ye  prentit  them  yersel! 
And  ye  hae  spoilt  them  athegither.  They 
were  made  for  singin'an'  no'  for  readin',  but 
ye  hae  broken  the  charm  now,  an'  they'll 
never  be  sung  mair;  an'  the  warst  thing  o' 
a',  they're  neither  richt  spelled  nor  richt 
settin'  doun." 

The  third  of  this  happy  triumvirate  of 

^  In  his  Domestic  Manners  and  Private  Life  of  Sir  Walter 
Scott  ( 1 834 ) — an  admirable  little  compilation,  notwithstanding 
Lockhart's  strictures — Hogg  gives  the  date  as  ' '  one  fine  day 
in  the  summer  of  1801,"  But  this  is  manifestly  a  mistake, 
for  he  speaks  of  having  seen  the  first  volumes  of  the  Minstrelsy, 
and  mentions  that  he  had  himself  helped  with  matter  for  a 
third  volume. 

45 


FOOTSTEPS  OF  SCOTT 
Scott  coadjutors  wacs  John  Leyden,  the 
Orientalist,  and  author  of  Scenes  of  Infancy. 
Leyden,  a  shepherd's  son,  was  born  at  Den- 
holm,  in  Teviotdale,  in  1775.  When  a  student 
at  Edinburgh  he  made  an  acquaintance 
with  Scott,  which  ripened  into  the  warmest 
friendship.  Scott  was  never  better  helped 
than  by  Leyden,  and  the  Minstrelsy  contains 
several  striking  ballads  from  Leyden's  own 
pen — Lord  Soulis;  The  Cout  ofKeeldar;  and 
The  Mermaid. 

At  length,  in  January  1802,  the  work  was 
issued  and  met  with  a  hearty  reception. 
The  first  edition  consisted  of  800  copies,  of 
which  50  were  on  large  paper.  On  the  half- 
profit  system,  Scott  shared  to  the  extent  of 
about  £80,  a  sum  which  could  never  have 
repaid  him  for  the  actual  disbursements 
incurred  in  collecting  his  materials.  With- 
in less  than  a  year  all  the  copies  were  dis- 
posed of,  and  a  new  edition,  with  a  third 
volume,  printed  at  Edinburgh,  appeared  in 
April  1803.  The  Longmans  secured  the  copy- 
right of  the  Minstrelsy  for  £500,  and  print- 
46 


MARRIAGE  AND  "  THE  MINSTRELSY  " 

ed,  up  to  1820,  half  a  dozen  editions.  Since 
then  it  has  been  chiefly  incorporated  in  the 
collections  of  the  "  Poetical  Works,"  to  the 
extent  of  at  least  15,000  more  in  Lockhart's 
time ;  now  it  must  be  near  five  times  that 
figure. 

Whilst  preserving  in  imperishable  ink 
the  best  of  the  hitherto  unpublished  bal- 
lads of  the  Border,  this  also  must  be  said 
for  the  Minstrelsy,  that  it  was  the  germ  out 
of  which  grew  the  stately  succession  of 
Waverley  itself.  It  was  the  seed-plant  of 
every  one  of  Scott's  romances.  Minus  the 
Minstrelsy,  we  might  have  been  minus  Wav- 
erley and  Guy  Mannering  and  Old  Mortality 
and  Redgauntlet  themselves.  For  a  course 
of  Scott,  one  cannot  do  better  than  begin 
with  the  Minstrelsy.  Certainly  Scott  can- 
not be  said  to  be  read  if  the  Minstrelsy  be  a 
shut  book.  There  is  so  much  in  it  that  one 
would  not  like  to  lose — so  much  that  throws 
a  flood  of  light  on  the  character  and  the  lat- 
er work  of  its  compiler.  "  No  person  who 
has  not  gone  through  its  volumes,"  says 
47 


FOOTSTEPS      OF      SCOTT 

Lockhart,  "for  the  express  purpose  of  com- 
paring their  contents  with  his  great  origin- 
al works,  can  have  formed  a  conception  of 
the  endless  variety  of  incidents  and  images 
now  expanded  and  emblazoned  by  his  ma- 
ture art,  of  which  the  first  hints  may  be 
found  either  in  the  text  of  those  primitive 
ballads,  or  in  the  notes  which  the  happy 
rambles  of  his  youth  hadgathered  together 
for  their  illustration."  When  Waverley  was 
a  new  book,  and  all  the  world  was  puzzling 
over  the  problem  of  its  authorship,  John 
Wilson  is  reported  to  have  exclaimed,  with 
characteristic  impatience :  "  I  wonder  what 
all  those  people  are  perplexing  themselves 
about  ?  Have  they  forgotten  the  jprose  of 
the  Minstrelsy  ?  " 

May  we  glance  for  a  moment  at  the  after- 
career  of  the  three  whose  names  have  just 
been  mentioned — Laidlaw,  Hogg,  and  Ley- 
den  ?  Laidlaw  farmed  for  a  time  Traquair 
Knowe,  in  Traquair  parish,  where  he  wrote 
that  touching  lyric,  ranking  next  to  the 
Flowers  of  the  Forest  for  its  pathos — Lucys 
48 


MARRIAGE  AND  "THE  MINSTRELSY'' 

Flittin — the  scene  of  which  is  laid  at  that 
paradise  of  the  Borders — The  Glen.  But 
Laidlaw,  like  Hogg,  was  unsuccessful  as  a 
farmer.  Later  in  life  he  became  Scott's 
steward  at  Abbotsford.  He  wrote  for  the 
magazines,  and  did  a  fair  amount  of  liter- 
ary work,  and  it  is  an  open  secret  that  to 
many  of  his  suggestions  Scott  was  indebted 
for  improvements  in  the  novels.  Almost 
the  whole  of  The  Bride  of  La7n7ner7noor 
was  dictated  to  Laidlaw  during  the  crisis  of 
1817.  With  the  black  year,  1826,  Laidlaw 
quitted  Scott's  service,  but  returned  in  1830. 
When  the  tragedy  ended,  he  migrated  north 
to  Ross-shire,  and  was  factor  on  the  estate 
of  Balnagowan.  His  health  failing,  he  went 
to  reside  with  his  brother,  a  sheep-farmer 
at  Contin,  near  Dingwall,  where  he  died  in 
1845. 

James  Hogg,  the  Ettrick  Shepherd,  had 
a  somewhat  chequered  career,  both  as  shep- 
herd and  as  flockmaster  himself.  After  oc- 
cupying several  situations  in  Edinburgh 
and  elsewhere,  he  settled  finally  in  the  Yar- 
49  4 


FOOTSTEPS  OF  SCOTT 
row  valley,  at  Altrive  (now  Eldinhope),  tak- 
ing a  lease  also  of  Mount  Benger  (now  ex- 
tinct), on  the  north  side  of  the  river,  opposite 
Altrive.  But  Hogg  was  not  made  for  farm- 
ing, and  both  attempts  turned  out  failures. 
His  most  successful  ventures  were  his  mar- 
riage to  Margaret  Phillips,  and  the  writing 
of  the  Queens  Wake,  especially  Kilmeny, 
and  several  songs  that  must  live  so  long  as 
the  Scottish  tongue  is  spoken,  such  as,  When 
the  Kye  Comes  Hame;  Cam  ye  by  Athol; 
Flora  Macdonald's  Lament;  Come  o'er  the 
Stream,  Charlie;  Lock  the  Door,  Lariston. 
Nor  can  we  forget  his  Skylark,  or  his  Brow- 
nie of  Bodsbeck  and  Shepherds  Calendar, 
two  of  the  best  Border  classics.  His  Sui- 
cide's Grave  also  is  a  powerful  fragment, 
whose  authorship  has  sometimes  been  at- 
tributed to  Lockhart,  but  on  inadequate 
evidence.  It  was  at  the  Gordon  Arms  in 
Yarrowdale  that  Hogg  and  Scott  met  for 
the  last  time  in  1832.  Hogg  died  at  Altrive 
three  years  later,  and  was  buried  among 
his  shepherd  ancestors  in  the  green  heart 
50 


MARRIAGE  AND  "THE  MINSTRELSY" 

of  Ettrick,  within  a  stone's-throw  of  his 
birth-spot. 

John  Leyden  became  a  preacher  of  the 
Church  of  Scotland,  but  failed  to  obtain  a 
parish — unfortunately  for  the  Church  and 
for  the  cause  of  learning.  He  afterwards 
studied  medicine  and  took  his  degree  of 
M.D.  at  St  Andrews.  In  1803  he  sailed  for 
India,  rising  in  turn  to  a  Professorship  of 
Oriental  Languages,  and  to  a  Judgeship, 
besides  being  Assay-Master  of  the  Calcutta 
Mint.  In  1811  he  accompanied  Lord  Minto, 
then  Governor-General,  as  interpreter,  in 
the  expedition  against  Java,  and  to  investi- 
gate the  language  and  literature  of  the 
tribes  inhabiting  the  island.  When  near  the 
seaport  city  of  Batavia,  as  a  result  of  his 
over-eagerness  to  explore  an  unventilated 
library  containing  many  valuable  manu- 
scripts, his  brilliant  and  laborious  career 
was  sadly  and  suddenly  terminated  (from 
fever)  whilst  he  was  yet  in  his  thirty-sixth 
year.  Three  days  earlier — 28th  August — 
Scott  had  written  him  a  long  letter  relative 
51 


FOOTSTEPS      OF      SCOTT 

to  the  purchase  of  Abbotsford,  which  was 
returned  unopened.  A  Memoir  from  Scott's 
pen  was  published  in  the  Edinburgh  An- 
nual Register  for  the  same  year,  and  it  is 
said  that  he  could  never  speak  of  his  friend 
"without  his  lip  quivering  and  his  eye 
moistening."  In  chapter  xxi.  of  St  Ronans 
Well,  Mr  Cargill  likens  Leyden  to  "  a  lamp 
too  early  quenched  " ;  a  comparison  which 
recalls  the  lines  from  The  Lord  of  the  Isles : 

"  His  bright  and  brief  career  is  o'er. 
And  mute  his  tuneful  strains. 
Quenched  is  his  lamp  of  varied  lore 
That  loved  the  light  of  song  to  pour ; 
A  distant  and  a  deadly  shore 
Has  Leyden's  cold  remains." 


[Since  the  proofs  of  this  book  were  corrected,  Mr  Bell, 
the  veteran  referred  to  at  page  8,  has  passed  away.  ] 


CHAPTER  III 

ASHESTIEL  AND  THE  VERSE  ROMANCES 

At  the  uncommonly  early  age  of  twenty- 
eight  Scott  was  installed  Sheriff  of  Selkirk- 
shire— "the  Shirra."  He  was  indebted  to 
the  Duke  of  Buccleuch  for  the  post,  and 
there  is  little  doubt  as  to  his  fitness  for  it. 
A  failure  at  the  Bar,  he  was,  notwithstand- 
ing, an  exceedingly  able  lawyer,  "a  pro- 
found jurist" indeed,  according  to  those  who 
knew  him  best ;  impartial,  with  a  wonder- 
ful stock  of  that  most  invaluable  asset,  com- 
mon sense.  That  even  a  judgeship  would 
have  been  safe  in  his  hands  is  hardly  to  be 
doubted.  He  did  make  some  effort  towards 
being  appointed  one  of  the  Barons  of  Ex- 
chequer, as  certain  of  the  Scottish  judges, 
in  imitation  of  an  English  fashion,  were 
then  called,  but  the  attempt — fortunately 
or  unfortunately — came  to  nothing.  The 
53 


FOOTSTEPS      OF      SCOTT 

fact  shows,  however,  what  he  thought  of 
his  own  fitness,  and  Scott  never  rated  him- 
self too  high.  He  wrote  on  Judicial  Re- 
form ;  the  legal  allusions  of  the  Waverleys; 
and  his  other  offices,  Clerk  of  Session,  and 
Secretary  to  the  Commission  on  Scottish 
Jurisprudence,  are  all  corroborative  of  the 
claim  set  forth  on  his  behalf  to  be  a  com- 
petent lawyer.  He  was  thus  thoroughly  at 
home  in  the  new  role  of  Sheriff,  which  he 
held  and  adorned  for  the  next  thirty-two 
years.  How^  well  he  performed  his  duties 
is  evident  from  the  inscription  on  the  Sel- 
kirk statue,  which  stands  immediately  in 
front  of  the  old  County  Court-house  in  the 
High  Street:— 

ERECTED  IN  AUGUST   1839 

IN    PROUD    AND    AFFECTIONATE 

REMEMBRANCE  OF 

Sir  WALTER  SCOTT,  Baronet, 

SHERIFF  OF  THIS  COUNTY  FROM  1800  TO  1832. 

Like  the  Outlaw  Murray,  he  was  Sheriff 
of  Ettrick  Forest,  the  designation  he  pre- 
ferred, linking  himself  to  the  balladists 
54 


ASHESTIEL    AND    VERSE    ROMANCES 

and  all  the  romance  of  the  most  romantic 
Sheriffdom  in  Scotland. 

He  was  not  at  home  in  another  sense, 
however,  as  he  might  have  found  to  his 
cost,  had  he  persisted  in  disregarding  the 
regulation  which  obliges  a  Sheriff  to  reside 
for  at  least  four  months  in  the  year  within 
his  jurisdiction.  Scott  did  not  comply  w^ith 
this  requirement  for  about  five  years  after 
his  appointment,  much  to  the  annoyance 
(unnecessary)  of  Lord  Napier,  the  Lord- 
Lieutenant,  who  sternly  reminded  him  of 
his  dereliction.  That  Scott  did  not  take  the 
rebuke  at  all  well  is  clear.  He  considered  it 
merely  an  insistence  on  an  empty  form. 
That,  indeed,  it  was  in  some  ways ;  for  not 
one  of  his  shrieval  duties  had  been  neglect- 
ed, and  the  like  condition  was  not  enforced 
in  the  case  of  many  of  his  brother  Sheriffs. 
Technically,  of  course,  Scott  was  in  the 
wrong,  a  fact  which  he  must  have  come  to 
realise,  for  he  immediately  took  steps  to 
amend  matters.  The  relinquishing  of  his 
"sweet  little  cottage  "on  the  Eskwasakeen 
55 


FOOTSTEPS      OF      SCOTT 

disappointment,  but  there  was  no  help  for 
it.  It  is  interesting  to  hear  of  Harden  and 
Newark  in  the  running  as  possible  resid- 
ences, though  judgedboth  unsuitable.  Then 
Ashestiel  cropped  up  and  was  fixed  upon, 
the  circumstances  at  the  moment  pointing 
to  it  as  offering  the  best  solution  of  the 
house  difficulty.  As  the  abode  of  his  rela- 
tives— the  Russells — the  place  was  not  un- 
known to  Scott.  Colonel  William  Russell, 
the  husband  of  his  maternal  aunt,  Jean 
Rutherford,  had  just  died  (1804),  when  Ash- 
estiel passed  to  Russell's  son  James  (after- 
wards General  Sir  James),  a  soldier  of 
distinction  in  the  East  India  Company's 
service.  With  his  cousin's  trustees  Scott 
bargained  for  a  lease,  and  we  find  him  in 
occupation  soon  afterwards. 

The  Ashestiel  tenancy —from  1804  to  1812 
— must  be  reckoned  far  and  away  the  hap- 
piest period  of  Scott's  career.  Here  certain- 
ly we  see  him  at  his  best  from  the  stand- 
point of  human  enjoyment,  for  never  was 
he  so  absolutely  at  rest  again.  How  one 
56 


ASHESTIEL    AND    VERSE    ROMANCES 

loves  to  remember  himi  at  this  point  of  his 
history,  in  those  glorious  halcyon  days,  ere 
yet  the  Abbotsf  ord  dream  had  roused  him, 
before  he  had  plunged  into  the  vortex  of 
commercial  speculation,  or  had  begun  to 
suffer  from  the  inconvenient  attentions  of 
the  lion-hunters !  Happy  in  his  wife,  in  his 
family,  in  his  friendships,  in  his  health ;  pos- 
sessed of  a  competence,  immune  from  the 
real  worries  of  life  ;  with  a  learned  leisure 
which  later  years  never  gave  him,  with 
long  evenings  free  for  the  cultivation  of  the 
literary  habit,  his  life  here  was  a  truly  ideal 
one. 

Of  the  place  itself,  Lockhart  says  that  a 
more  beautiful  situation  as  the  home  of  a 
poet  could  not  be  conceived.  And  it  is  the 
poetic  that  constitutes  Ashestiel's  chief  at- 
traction. It  was  during  Scott's  stay  here 
that  his  fame  as  a  poet  was  established ; 
hence  to  students  of  the  poems  the  house 
possesses  an  interest  which  is  not  shared  by 
any  of  his  other  residences.  With  the  stately 
Tweed  flowing  close  by,  and  the  "classic 
57 


FOOTSTEPS      OF      SCOTT 

Yarrow,"  ""fabulosiis  aswasever  Hydaspes," 
a  few  miles  off  across  the  "wild,  unbound- 
ed hills "  which  are  the  overshadowing 
presence  in  every  direction,  Ash  estiel,  more 
than  Sandyknowe,  more  than  Abbotsf  ord, 
was  "meet  nurse  for  a  poetic  child."  Since 
Scott's  day  the  picturesqueness  of  the  spot, 
whose  autumn  shades  are  so  winsomely 
painted  in  the  introduction  to  canto  i.  of 
Marmion,  has  greatly  increased,  as  has  in- 
deed all  the  beauty  of  that  majestic  sweep 
of  the  Tweed  valley  between  Elibank  and 
Ettrickfoot.  Ashestiel  remains  in  posses- 
sion of  the  family  from  whom  Scott  had  it, 
but  there  is  little  left  to  remind  us  of  his  oc- 
cupancy— a  portrait,  a  punch-bowl,  and  the 
invalid  chair  used  in  the  last  days  at  Ab- 
botsf ord,  being  about  all. 

The  house  has  changed  somewhat,  though 
not  so  "sorrowfully "as  Ruskin  would  have 
us  suppose.  An  east  wing  has  been  added, 
and  the  entrance,  which  was  turned  Tweed- 
wards,  now  faces  the  Yarrow  heights.  The 
site  was  chosen,  no  doubt,  for  defensible- 
58 


ASHESTIEL    AND    VERSE    ROMANCES 

ness,  a  piece  of  the  original  peel  being  ob- 
servable in  the  present  odd,  three-cornered 
edifice.  Scott  wrote  in  what  was  the  family 
dining-room — the  library  now— a  quaint 
old-fashioned  apartment  with  one  window, 
on  the  east  side  of  the  entrance  porch. 
Through  one  of  the  original  windows  (con- 
verted into  presses,  by  the  fireplace)  the 
greyhounds,  Douglas  and  Percy,  referred 
to  in  Marmion  as  "cumbering  our  parlour's 
narrow  floor,"  leapt  out  and  in  at  pleasure. 
The  garden,  described  by  Lockhart,  with  its 
"  hoUy  hedges  and  broad  green  terraced 
walks," is  little  altered;  and  the  deep  ravine 
to  the  east,  through  which  a  mountain  riv- 
ulet "  more  heard  than  seen  "  "  hurries  its 
waters  to  the  Tweed,"  is  still  true  to  the 
Marmion  picture : — 

"  Late,  gazing  down  the  steepy  linn 
That  hems  our  little  garden  in, 
Low  in  its  dark  and  narrow  glen, 
You  scarce  the  rivulet  might  ken, 
So  thick  the  tangled  greenwood  grew, 
So  feeble  trUl'd  the  streamlet  through : 

59 


FOOTSTEPS      OF      SCOTT 

Now  murmuring  hoarse,  and  frequent  seen 
Througli  bush  and  brier,  no  longer  green, 
An  angry  brook,  it  sweeps  the  glade, 
Brawls  over  rock  and  wild  cascade, 
And,  foaming  brown  with  double  speed, 
Hurries  its  waters  to  the  Tweed. " 

In  Scott's  time  there  was  no  bridge  across 
the  Tweed  (the  present  structure  dates 
from  1848),  and  access  to  the  house  was  only 
to  be  gained  by  a  rather  perilous  ford,  of 
which  many  humorous  and  exciting  anec- 
dotes are  recorded.  Scott  had  an  amazing 
fondness  for  fords,  and  was  not  a  little  ad- 
venturous in  dashing  through,  whatever 
might  be  the  state  of  the  flood.  If  it  was 
at  all  possible  to  scramble  across,  he  scorn- 
ed to  go  ten  yards  about.  Like  Morton  in 
Old  Mortality,  "the  management  of  a  horse 
in  water  was  as  familiar  to  him  as  when 
upon  a  meadow,"  and  most  of  his  heroes 
appear  to  have  been  endowed  with  similar 
propensities.  Even  the  White  Lady  of 
Avenel  delights  in  the  ford.  In  his  descrip- 
tion of  Marynion  fording  the  Tweed  at 
Coldstream  we  have  a  characteristic  pic- 
60 


ASHESTIEI.    AND    VERSE    ROMANCES 

ture  of  Scott  himself  plunging  into  the 
river  at  Ashostiel: — 

"  Then  on  that  dangerous  ford,  and  deep, 
Where  to  the  Tweed,  Leet's  eddies  creep, 

He  ventured  desperately ; 
And  not  a  moment  will  he  bide 
Till  squire,  or  groom,  before  him  ride, 
Headmost  of  all,  he  stems  the  tide, 

And  stems  it  gallantly." 

It  is  possible  that  an  incident  recalled  by 
Skene  may  have  given  rise  to  these  lines, 
when  (after  a  notable  flood  in  1805)  "Scott 
was  the  first  to  attempt  passage  of  the 
Tweed  on  his  favourite  black  horse  Cap- 
tain, who  had  scarcely  entered  the  river 
when  he  plunged  beyond  his  depth,  and  had 
to  swim  to  the  other  side  with  his  burden. 
It  requires  a  good  horseman  to  swim  a  deep 
and  rapid  stream,  but  he  trusted  to  the 
vigour  of  his  steady  trooper,  and  in  spite  of 
his  lameness,  kept  his  seat  manfully." 

One  or  two  pleasant  little  photographs 

of  the  Ashestiel  life  appear  in  the  Familiar 

Letters,  published  by  Mr  David  Douglas  in 

1894.    In  a  letter  to  Leyden,  dated  July  5, 

61 


FOOTSTEPS      OF      SCOTT 

1806,  Scott  says :  "  I  have  taken  a  lease  of 
the  house  and  estate  of  Ashestiel.  You 
remember  this  little  mansion  upon  the 
Tweed  where  we  dined  with  the  Miss 
Rutherfords  and  the  Miss  Russells.  I  have 
sublet  the  whole  of  the  sheep  farm,  which 
is  valuable  and  extensive,  and  retained  in 
my  own  hands  a  small  arablefarmfor cows, 
horses,  sheep,  for  the  table,  etc.  Here  we 
live  all  the  summer  like  little  kings,  and 
only  wish  that  you  could  take  a  scamper 
with  me  over  the  hills  in  the  morning,  and 
return  to  a  clean  tablecloth,  a  leg  of  forest 
mutton,  and  a  blazing  hearth  in  the  after- 
noon." 

In  August  he  writes  to  Lady  Abercorn : 
"Our  whole  habitation  could  dance  very 
easily  in  your  great  salon  without  displac- 
ing a  single  moveable,  or  endangering  a 
mirror.  We  have  no  green  pastures,  nor 
stately  trees;  but  to  make  amends,  we  have 
one  of  the  most  beautiful  streams  in  the 
world,  winding  through  steep  mountains, 
which  are  now  purple  with  the  heath-blos- 
62 


ASHESTIEL    AND    VERSE    ROMANCES 

som.  We  are  eight  miles  from  the  nearest 
market  town,  and  four  from  the  nearest 
neighbour.^  The  last  circumstance  I  by  no 
means  regret,  but  the  first  is  productive  of 
very  curious  shifts  and  ludicrous  distresses. 
.  .  .  For  example,  my  scrutoire  having  tra- 
velled by  some  slow  conveyance,  I  was  ob- 
liged— not  to  mention  searching  half  an 
hour  for  this  solitary  sheet  of  paper — to 
sally  forth  and  shoot  a  crow  to  procure  a 
quill,  which  performs  its  duty  extremely 
ill,  as  your  Ladyship  is  witness,  .  .  .  For 
the  main  business  of  the  day,  we  have  the 
best  mutton  in  the  world,  and  find  by  ex- 
perience that  the  air  of  our  hills  makes  an 
excellent  sauce.  Then  we  have  pigs  and 
poultry,  and  a  whole  apparatus  of  guns, 
fishing-rods,  salmon-spears,  and  nets  for 
the  employment  of  male  visitors,  who  do 

^  Ashestiel  is  equidistant  from  Selkirk  and  Innerleithen, 
about  7J  miles.  Neighbours  are  near  enough  now.  The 
Peel,  Laidlawstiel,  Holylee,  and  Fairnalee  are  all  within  a 
comparatively  short  distance.  In  Scott's  time,  Ashestiel 
lay  in  the  parish  of  Yarrow  ;  it  is  now  included  in  the  quoad 
sacra  parish  of  Caddonfoot. 

63 


FOOTSTEPS      OF      SCOTT 

not  find  their  sport  less  agreeable  because 
part  of  their  dinner  depends  upon  it.  Then 
grouse -shooting  begins  by -and -by,  and  I 
have  some  very  good  coveys  on  the  moors, 
besides  the  privilege  of  going  far  and  wide 
over  those  of  my  neighbour  the  Duke  of 
Buccleuch,  a  favour  not  the  less  readily 
granted  because,  like  many  other  persons 
in  this  vrorld,  I  make  more  noise  than  1  do 
mischief.  Then,  if  all  this  is  insufficient,  you 
shall  have  hare  soup;  for  am  I  not  the 
Sheriff  of  the  County,  and  may  I  not  break 
the  laws  when  I  please,  and  course  out  of 
season?  Besides  all  this,  you  shall  have  one 
of  the  kindest  welcomes  which  our  hospi- 
table mountaineers  can  afford." 

All  of  which  shows  how  the  Shirra's 
heart  lay.  He  was  sportsman  no  less  than 
student — as  eager  for  out-of-doors  amuse- 
ments as  for  the  morning's  desk-work.  Few 
men,  it  must  be  said,  made  test  of  nature's 
possibilities  more  than  Scott,  "  combining 
strenuous  intellectual  toil  with  physical  ex- 
ertions which  of  themselves  would  have 
64 


ASHESTIEL  AND  VERSE  ROMANCES 
sufficed  to  tax  to  the  uttermost  men  of  more 
energetic  temper  and  robust  frame."  There 
was  unhmited  scope  for  his  favourite  sport 
of  greyhound  coursing,  as  well  as  for  long 
revelling  rides  across  the  hills.  He  rode  with 
a  recklessness  which  alarmed  his  compan- 
ions. "The  de'il's  in  ye,  Shirra,"  one  of  them 
would  say.  "  Ye'U  never  halt  till  they  bring 
ye  hame  wi'  your  feet  foremost."  At  night 
he  had  the  excitements,  not  to  mention  the 
risks,  of  salmon-leistering.  What  rambles, 
too  ("  raids  "  on  a  smaller  scale  than  in  the 
Minstrelsy  days),  "through  all  the  wide 
Border,"  with  such  a  boon  comrade  as 
Skene,  for  instance,  whose  Reminiscences 
are  among  the  finest  things  in  the  Bio- 
graphy !  We  see  Scott  at  Ashestiel,  thrice 
happy  both  in  his  work  and  play,  a  favour- 
ed child  of  fortune,  with  not  a  cloud  to  dar- 
ken his  sky ! 

Scott's  friendships  at  Ashestiel  are  among 

its  most  enlivening  features.  It  was  here 

that  Tom  Purdie  came  into  the  arena  for 

the  first  time,  in  the  capacity  of  poacher, 

65  5 


FOOTSTEPS  OF  SCOTT 
forsooth, — escaping  the  law,  however,  with 
such  a  mournful  account  of  his  circum- 
stances as  to  play  upon  the  Sheriff's  sym- 
pathy, and  to  end  in  his  being  taken  into  the 
Sheriff's  employment.  First  he  ^vas  grieve 
on  the  little  hill-farm  (a  position  offered, 
by  the  way,  to  Hogg,  but  declined),  and  by 
and  by  we  know  how,  by  dint  of  that  rare 
fidelity  which  characterised  all  his  future, 
he  won  his  way  as  Scott's  trusted  facto- 
tum, and  by  far  the  best-known  of  Scott's 
friends  in  humble  life.  He  had  his  weak- 
ness, to  be  sure,  which  drew  from  Scott  the 
threatened  epitaph,  "Here  lies  one  who 
might  have  been  trusted  with  untold  gold, 
but  not  with  unmeasured  whisky."  But 
his  death  was  a  staggering  blow  to  Scott. 
"  There  is  a  heart  cold  that  loved  me  well, 
and  thought  of  my  interest  more  than  his 
own,"  he  said.  Of  memorials  raised  by  mas- 
ters over  the  remains  of  faithful  servants, 
none  is  more  touching,  none  more  honest, 
none  more  remembered  by  the  world.  Peter 
Mathieson,  Purdie's  brother-in-law,  came 
66 


ASHESTIEL  AND  VERSE  ROMANCES 
into  Scott's  service  as  coachman  about  the 
same  time — a  no  less  loyal  soul,  who  sur- 
vived Sir  Walter  several  years. 

It  was  at  this  time,  too,  that  Scott  became 
acquainted  with  Mungo  Park,  the  hero  of 
the  Niger,  who  was  living  at  his  native 
cottage  of  Foulshiels,  on  the  Yarrow,  writ- 
ing the  story  of  his  travels,  and  planning  a 
second  expedition  into  Africa.  Many  a  long 
talk  had  those  two  great  Borderers  on  the 
subject  of  African  exploration.  On  the  eve 
of  his  departure,  Park  paid  Scott  a  fare- 
well visit,  and  slept  at  Ashestiel.  Next 
morning  his  host  accompanied  him  home- 
ward on  horseback  by  the  bridle-path  a- 
mong  the  silent  lonely  hills  betwixt  Tweed 
and  Yarrow.  They  parted  on  Williamhope 
Ridge,  at  the  head  of  the  Peel  Glen.  A 
small  ditch  divided  the  moor  from  the  road, 
and  in  going  over  it  Park's  horse  stumbled 
and  nearly  fell.  "I  am  afraid,  Mungo,  that 
is  a  bad  omen,"  said  Scott ;  to  which  Park 
replied,  with  a  smile,  "Freits  [omens]  follow 
those  who  look  to  them."  With  this  he 
67 


FOOTSTEPS      OF      SCOTT 

struck  spurs  into  his  horse,  galloped  off, 
without  once  looking  back,  and  Scott  saw 
him  no  more. 

It  was  now  that  Scott  began  the  habit  of 
doing  his  literary  work  in  the  morning, 
rising  at  five  o'clock,  lighting  his  own  fire 
in  the  season,  shaving  and  dressing  with 
deliberation,  sitting  down  at  his  desk  at  six 
and  writing  for  three  hours  before  break- 
fast, which  he  called  "  breaking  the  neck 
of  the  day's  work."  After  breakfast  he  had 
generally  two  hours  more,  and  by  noon  he 
was  "his  own  man,"  as  he  phrased  it.  In 
good  weather  he  was  usually  out  and  on 
horseback  by  one  o'clock.  It  was  only  by  a 
faithful  adherence  to  method  that,  despite 
the  multitudinous  demands  upon  his  time, 
Scottwas  able  to  get  through  the  enormous 
literary  tasks  which  lay  to  his  hand. 

Albeit  the  birthplace  of  the  great  verse- 
romances,  one  fears  that  Ashestiel  is,  in 
some  way,  a  forgotten  shrine,  like  Sandy- 
knowe.  It  also  is  slightly  off  the  beaten 
track,  though  easily  accessible  from  Gala- 
68 


ASHESTIEL    AND    VERSE    ROMANCES 

shiels,  or  Selkirk,  or  Innerleithen.  The 
traveller  by  rail  may  enjoy  a  momentary 
glimpse  of  the  spot  midway  between  Clo- 
venfords and  Thornielee  stations.  The  first 
poem  finished  at  Ashestiel  was  The  Lay 
of  the  Last  Minstrel.  Though  published  in 
1805,  it  was  not,  strictly  speaking,  a  product 
of  the  Ashestiel  period.  Based  on  the  Bor- 
der legend  of  "  Gilpin  Horner,"  and  begun 
at  the  suggestion  of  Scott's  "beautiful 
chief  tainess,"  the  Countess  of  Dalkeith  (re- 
calling Cowper's  Sofa  and  Lady  Austen), 
The  Lay  was  originally  meant  to  be  a 
modern  Minstrelsy  ballad.  But  the  piece 
had  run  into  three  or  four  cantos,  and  was, 
besides,  well  able  to  stand  on  its  own  in- 
dependent merits.  Hence  its  separate  pub- 
lication. 

A  first  draft  of  canto  i.,  "  almost  in  the 
state  in  which  it  was  ultimately  publish- 
ed," was  written  at  Musselburgh  in  1802, 
while  Scott  was  confined  in  his  lodgings  for 
three  days  from  the  effects  of  a  volunteer- 
ing accident.  The  main  portions  of  the 
69 


FOOTSTEPS      OF      SCOTT 

poem  were  composed  partly  at  Lasswade, 
where  Wordsworth,  visiting  Scott  for  the 
first  time  in  September  1803,  heard  him 
read  and  recite  the  first  four  cantos,  and 
was  greatly  charmed  with  the  "novelty 
of  the  manners,  the  clear  picturesque  de- 
scriptions, and  the  easy  glowing  energy  of 
much  of  the  verse";  and  partly  at  Ashestiel, 
whither  Scott  removed  at  the  following 
Whitsunday.  By  Christmas  1804  it  had 
passed  through  the  press,  and  was  given  to 
the  public  early  in  the  new  year. 

Sir  Tristrem  excepted,  The  Lay  was  the 
first-fruits  of  the  Minstrelsy,  For  years,  as 
we  have  seen,  the  author  had  been  living 
in  a  paradise  of  romance,  and  with  heart 
and  soul  in  the  business,  the  poem  came  as 
a  veritable  inspiration.  It  was  compara- 
tively easy  for  Scott  to  dash  off  its  strong 
and  stirring  stanzas.  When  one  recalls  how 
the  final  volumes  of  Waverley  were  wrung 
from  the  evenings  of  three  summer  weeks, 
a  canto  per  week  of  The  Lay  will  not  seem 
so  surprising.  Who  but  one  of  Scott's  mar- 
70 


ASHESTIEL  AND  VERSE  ROMANCES 
vellous  capabilities,  living  the  dual  life  of 
past  and  present,  as  familiar  with  the  en- 
vironment of  forgotten  generations  as  with 
his  own,  could  have  accomplished  feats  of 
intellect  so  stupendous? 

It  must  be  remembered  also  that  Scott's 
poetical  chances  were  then  at  their  best. 
English  Poetry  had  come  to  a  kind  of  tran- 
sition stage.  For  a  new  voice  and  pen,  with 
fresh  measures  and  methods,  there  was  the 
amplest  room.  So  Scott  drifted  into  his  op- 
portunity. He  took  the  tide  at  the  flood,  and 
it  led  him  on  to  fortune.  With  themes  so  re- 
freshingly novel,  and  a  style  of  the  most 
romantic  attractiveness,  one  little  wonders 
that  he  so  quickly  attained  popularity  and 
place  as  the  first  poet  of  the  day,  until 
Byron's  loftier  genius  blazed  upon  the  hor- 
izon. It  was  the  success  of  The  Lay  which 
decided  Scott  for  the  literary  life— so  "won- 
drous kind  "  were  the  critics,  so  exuberant 
was  the  public.  And  weightiest  honour  of 
all  for  the  adventurous  Minstrel,  "amongst 
those  who  hastened  to  smile  upon  him  were 
71 


FOOTSTEPS      OF      SCOTT 

numbered  the  great  names  of  William  Pitt 
and  Charles  Fox."  Thus  at  four-and-thirty, 
little  more  than  a  hundred  years  since, 
Walter  Scott  found  the  world  at  his  feet. 
The  first  edition  of  The  Lay  was  a  magnifi- 
cent quarto  of  750  copies,  and  of  succeed- 
ing editions,  60,000  copies  were  sold  in  the 
author's  lifetime.  In  the  history  of  British 
Poetry,  says  Lockhart,  nothing  had  equal- 
led the  demand  for  The  Lay  of  the  Last  Min- 
strel. The  copyright  was  sold  for  £600,  and 
of  the  whole  profits  Scott  netted  a  trifle  less 
than  £770. 

The  locale  of  The  Lay  is  chiefly  the  coun- 
ties of  Selkirk  and  Roxburgh.  At  Newark, 
in  Yarrowdale,  the  Minstrel  (whose  model 
was  probably  Burne  the  Violer)  is  made  to 
recite  his  tale,  but  the  principal  scenes  are 
at  Branksome,  on  the  Teviot,  and  at  Mel- 
rose Abbey.  The  finest  parts  of  the  poem 
dealwithDeloraine's  night-ride,  the  finding 
of  the  Book  in  the  dead  Wizard's  hand,  the 
gathering  of  the  Border  clans,  and,  of 
course,  the  fights.    Scott's  best  descriptive 


NEWARK 

From  a  water-colour  drauiing  by 

TOM  SCOTT,   R.S.A. 


■  Then  oft  from  Newark's  riven  tower, 
Sallied  a  Scottish  monarch's  power  ; 
A  thousand  vassals  muster  d  round, 
l\  it h  horse,  afid  /lawk,  and  horn,  and  hound." 

SCOTT. 


ASHESTIEL    AND    VERSE    ROMANCES 

pieces  are  most  often  his  fights.  Generally- 
speaking,  there  is  no  single  plot,  but  a  con- 
stant succession,  if  one  may  so  style  them. 
Curiously  also,  the  very  suggestion  which 
lent  origin  to  the  romance  falls  into  the 
background  entirely,  and  becomes,  as  Scott 
himself  felt,  more  of  an  "excrescence"  than 
anything  else.  It  was  the  wild  Border  life, 
with  its  passions,  and  intrigues,  and  jeal- 
ousies; with  its  loves  and  heroisms,  that 
Scott  found  himself  depicting,  and  that 
passes  panorama-like  through  the  whole 
piece.  The  poorest  part  is  the  goblin  super- 
stition, that  "  ungraceful  intruder,"  to  use 
Jeffrey's  apt  designation.  While,  in  one  or 
two  respects,  The  Lay  is  inferior  to  Mar- 
mion,  it  nevertheless  contains  grand  and 
noble  and  inspiring  passages,  to  which  one 
may  turn  again  and  again  with  undimin- 
ished delight,  with  never  a  sense  of  stale- 
ness.  Not  since  the  days  of  Burns  had  the 
public  listened  to  strains  more  simple  and 
melodious;  even  yet  it  brooks  but  few  rivals. 
Marmion,  a  Tale  of  Flodden  Field,  is  the 
73 


FOOTSTEPS  OF  SCOTT 
poem  which  most  of  all  identifies  itself 
with  the  Ashestiel  period.  Though,  as  a 
tale,  it  begins  with  "Norham's  castled 
steep"  and  the  English  Border  Country,  its 
best  things  are  not  those  splendidly  Hom- 
eric passages  which  have  given  it  a  fore- 
most place  among  verse-romances.  These 
are  rather  to  be  found  in  the  Introductory 
Epistles.  They  have  no  historical  connec- 
tion with  the  narrative  itself,  and  were 
resented  by  the  critics  (notably  by  Southey) 
as  so  many  interruptions  to  it.  Still  are 
they  replete  with  the  most  exquisite  word- 
paintings  that  Scott  has  given  us,  nearly 
all  of  them  reminiscent  of  the  scenery  and 
friendships  of  Ashestiel  and  its  surround- 
ings. They  tell  of  such  spots  as  the  Shirra's 
Knowe  and  the  Shirra's  Tree,  both  exist- 
ent to-day,  where  particular  portions  were 
penned ;  of  excursions  to  "  lone  St  Mary's 
silent  lake  " ;  of  the  charmed  Sandyknowe 
memories,  and  of  his  own  Edinburgh : 

"  Liberal,  unconfiiied,  and  free, 
Flinging  her  white  arms  to  the  sea." 

74 


ASHESTIEL  AND  VERSE  ROMANCES 
Each  Preface  is  in  itself  a  connnemoration 
of  happy  fellowships  during  the  Ashestiel 
days. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  that  the  last  of 
these  prologues  is  inscribed  "Mertoun 
House,"  and  is  redolent  of  the  old-fashioned 
Christmas  festivities  which  Scott  never 
failed  to  join  in  at  the  seat  of  Hugh  Scott, 
the  head  of  his  own  particular  branch  of  the 
clan,  now  represented  by  Lord  Polwarth : 

"  And  thus  my  Christmas  still  I  hold 
Where  my  great-gran dsire  ["Beardie"]  came  of  old 
With  amber  beard  and  flaxen  hair 
And  reverend  apostolic  air." 

Marmion,  for  which  Scott  received  a 
thousand  guineas  before  Constable  saw  a 
line  of  it,  was  published  in  February  1808, 
as  a  splendid  quarto,  price  one  guinea  and 
a  half.  The  edition — 2000  copies — was  dis- 
posed of  in  less  than  a  month.  Numerous 
editions  followed,  and  up  to  the  date  of 
Lockhart's  Life  (1837)  the  sale  was  estim- 
ated at  50,000.  It  is  rather  curious  to  recall 
Jeffrey's  objection  to  the  lack  of  patriotic 
75 


FOOTSTEPS      OF      SCOTT 

feeling  on  the  Scottish  side,  as  he  alleged, 
and  still  more  strange  that  the  stoical  edi- 
tor of  the  Ediiibu7^gh — one  of  the  author's 
intimates,  too  —  alone  of  all  the  critics 
should  have  handled  the  fjoem  with  such 
ill-conceived  severity. 

It  was  immediately  after  the  appearance 
of  Marmion  that  Scott  helped  to  launch  the 
opposition  Tory  Quarterly ;  and,  having 
broken  with  Constable,  set  up  his  own 
publishing  house  under  the  name  of  John 
Ballantyne  «&  Co.,  a  blunder  for  which  there 
is  no  palliation.  It  was  Ballantyne's  name, 
therefore,  which  appeared  on  the  title- 
page  of  his  next  work.  The  Lady  of  the 
Lake,  published  in  May  1810,  and  perhaps 
the  most  popular  of  all  his  poems.  For  the 
copyright  Scott  received  2000  guineas.  The 
first  edition,  in  quarto,  consisted  of  2050 
copies,  and  "  disappeared  instantly,"  being 
followed  in  the  same  year  by  four  other 
editions  in  octavo,  amounting  in  all  to 
17,250  copies.  Down  to  18oG,  Lockhart  esti- 
mates the  total  at  50,000.  The  poem,  which 
76 


ASHESTIEL  AND  VERSE  ROMANCES 
was  well  received  by  the  critics,  including 
Jeffrey,  who  made  handsome  amends  for 
his  attack  on  Mcwmion,  registers  the  high- 
water  mark  in  Scott's  poetical  career.  It 
has  been  more  frequently  reprinted  than 
any  of  the  other  poems,  and  Jeffrey's  pro- 
phecy, that  The  Lady  of  the  Lake  would  be 
oftener  read  than  either  of  its  author's 
earlier  romances,  has  come  true.  It  was 
The  Lady  which  really  created  the  ever- 
growing enthusiasm  for  Highland  scenery, 
for  the  Loch  Katrine  district  in  particular. 
Just  as  Scott  may  be  said  to  have  "  made  " 
Melrose,  so  is  the  Trossachs  locality  no  less 
his  "  making  "  also. 

Ashestiel  saw  only  the  projection  of  The 
Lo7^d  of  the  Isles,  but  the  hastily-written 
Vision  of  Don  Roderick,  a  poem  published 
on  behalf  of  Britain's  Portuguese  allies  in 
the  wars  with  Napoleon,  is  a  product  of 
the  place.  Greatest  of  all  the  memories  of 
Ashestiel  is  that  of  Waverley.  That,  no  less 
than  Marmion,  was  "  thought  out "  when 
Scott  was  having  his  "grand  gallops  among 
77 


FOOTSTEPS  OF  SCOTT 
the  braes,"  or  wandering  far  from  home 
with  no  companion  but  his  dog,  "  amid  the 
green  and  melancholy  wildernesses  where 
Yarrow  creeps  from  her  fountains."  But 
of  this  in  its  proper  quarter. 


CHAPTER  IV 

ABBOTSFORD 

Two  things — the  near  home-coming  of  his 
kinsman,  the  owner  of  Ashestiel,  and  his 
ambition  to  be  himself  a  "Tweedside  laird  " 
— were  the  chief  causes  for  what  must  be 
regarded  as  the  most  memorable  move  in 
Scott's  career,  namely,  the  creation  of  the 
world-famous  Abbotsford.  There  is  no  oc- 
casion to  cavil  at  Scott's  liking  for  a  laird- 
ship.  Itwasalegitimate  ambition  under  the 
circumstances.  As  a  man  of  good  social  po- 
sition, of  literary  reputation,  and  possessed 
of  fair  means  (his  income  was  now  ap- 
proaching £2000  a  year),  he  could  well  af- 
ford to  entertain  such  a  desire.  To  make 
Scott  the  target,  as  has  been  done,  for  an 
attack  on  the  pride  and  vanity  of  human 
wishes,  is  noways  warranted  by  the  facts  of 
the  case.  Granted  that  he  did  commit  mis- 
79 


FOOTSTEPS  OF  SCOTT 
takes  in  the  realisation  of  his  dream  of 
"  playing  the  grand  old  feudal  lord  again," 
there  was  no  reason  why  he  should  not  have 
succeeded  to  the  utmost.  That  he  did  fail 
(approximately)  was  owing  entirely  to  his 
indiscretions.  On  a  more  modest  scale,  he 
would  have  attained  his  ideal  untrammel- 
led in  its  felicity.  But  a  more  modest  scale 
did  not  suit  Scott,  and  he  had  to  suffer  the 
consequences. 

Surely,  however,  no  stigma  attaches  to 
him  for  having  desired  to  be  laird  of  Abbots- 
ford,  and  to  found  a  new  branch  of  the 
Scotts !  We  blame  him,  not  for  being  a  lord 
of  acres,  but  for  being  a  lord  of  too  many 
acres  before  they  had  become  truly  his  own. 
For,  as  the  story  of  his  life  makes  mani- 
fest, he  was  from  the  first  only  nominally 
proprietor  of  Abbotsford.  Still,  the  fact  re- 
mains that,  apart  from  Abbotsford  and  its 
*'  making,"  Scott  might  never  have  been  the 
man  that  he  became.  In  this  respect  it  is 
fortunate  for  the  world  that  he  had  not  the 
option  of  purchasing  either  Ashestiel  or 
80 


ABBOTSFORD 

Broadmeadows,  since,  as  may  not  be  doubt- 
ed, Abbotsf  ord  proved  to  be  the  stimulus  of 
an  intellectual  output  which  has  had  prob- 
ably no  parallel  in  its  own  sphere. 

It  is  almost  one  hundred  years  since  Scott 
acquired  the  land  on  which  arose  his  lordly 
mansion.  A  characteristic  description  of 
the  site  is  contained  in  his  letter  to  Leyden, 
of  date  August  25, 1811 :  "  The  best  domestic 
intelligence  is,  that  the  Sheriff  of  Selkirk- 
shire, his  lease  of  Ashestiel  being  out,  has 
purchasedaboutahundred  acres,  extending 
along  the  banks  of  the  Tweed  just  above 
the  confluence  of  the  Gala,  and  about  three 
miles  from  Melrose.  There,  saith  fame,  he 
designs  to  bigg  himself  a  hower—sibi  et 
amicis — and  happy  will  he  be  when  India 
shall  return  you  to  a  social  meal  at  his  cot- 
tage. The  place  looks  at  present  very  like 
•poor  Scotland's  gear.'  It  consists  of  a  bank 
and  haugh  as  poor  and  bare  as  Sir  John  Fal- 
staff's  regiment ;  though  I  fear,  ere  you 
come  to  see,  the  verdant  screen  I  am  about 
to  spread  over  its  nakedness  will  have  in 
81  6 


FOOTSTEPS  OF  SCOTT 
some  degree  removed  this  reproach.  But  it 
has  a  wild,  solitary  air,  and  commands  a 
splendid  reach  of  the  Tweed ;  and,  to  crown 
all,  in  the  words  of  Touchstone,  'it  is  a  poor 
thing,  but  mine  own.'  " 

That  he  had  gauged  the  potentialities  of 
the  place  goes  without  saying.  For  only  a 
few  years  sufficed  to  show  how  clearly  his 
prophet's  eye  had  foreseen  its  wealth  of 
promise  and  beauty.  The  spot  comes  upon 
the  scene  for  the  first  time  in  history  about 
the  year  1797,  as  the  property  of  Dr  Robert 
Douglas,  minister  of  Galashiels,  then  a  mere 
hamlet,  emerging  on  its  career  as  a  centre 
of  the  woollen  trade. 

Dr  Douglas,^  who  has  some  claim  to  re- 
membrance as  a  pioneer  in  affairs  both 
agricultural  and  industrial  (he  was  known 
as  "  the  Father  of  Galashiels  "),  had,  how- 

^  It  was  to  Dr  Douglas  that  Mrs  Cockburn  (Alison  Ruther- 
ford, of  Fairnalee,  authoress  of  The  Flowers  of  the  Forest)  wrote 
in  1777,  telling  of  Scott,  then  in  his  seventh  year,  as  "the 
most  extraordinary  genius  of  a  boy  I  ever  saw. "  The  asso- 
ciation of  the  two  men,  thirty-four  years  afterwards,  is  of 
singular  interest. 

82 


ABBOTSFORD 

ever,  done  little  or  nothing  for  his  estate  by 
the  Tweed.  He  never  lived  there,  and  con- 
temporary accounts  describe  the  place  as 
exhibiting  anything  but  an  attractive  ap- 
pearance. "  A  low-built,  one-storey  house, 
standing  in  what  was  literally  a  hole"  says 
one ;  while  another  remarks  that  it  "  had 
little  to  recommend  it  as  a  site  for  a  stately 
mansion."  Lockhart,  indeed,  alleges  that  it 
actually  went  by  the  nickname  of  Clarty  {i.e. 
filthy)  Hole.  But  this  is  a  mistake,  as  is  seen 
from  the  title-deeds,  the  original  designa- 
tion being  really  Cartley  or  Cartlaw  Hole. 
"Clarty"  was  merely  a  vulgar  play  on  the 
name,  though  apparently  apt  enough.  Nev- 
ertheless, as  has  been  said,  the  compensa- 
tions were  sufficient  to  weigh  against  i  ts  lack 
of  charm.  These  were,  in  Scott's  eyes,  the 
"ever-dear Tweed," his  favourite  river, flow- 
ing here  "  broad  and  bright,  over  a  bed  of 
milk-white  pebbles" ;  the  proximity  of  " Eil- 
don's  triple  height";  and  the  splendidly 
storied  neighbourhood  of  Melrose  and  Sel- 
kirk. 

83 


FOOTSTEPS  OF  SCOTT 
On  ground  now  enclosed  within  the  Ab- 
botsford  estate,  the  last  clan  battle  of  the 
Borders  had  been  fought  (1526) ;  and  from  a 
ford  at  the  junction  of  the  Tweed  and  the 
Gala,  used  by  the  abbots  of  long  ago,  the 
henceforth  classical  designation  of  Scott's 
new  lairdship  was  derived. 

The  flitting  from  Ashestiel  took  place  at 
Whitsunday  1812 — a  comical  affair,  accord- 
ing to  Scott's  account  of  it.  "The  neigh- 
bours," he  wrote  to  Lady  Alvanley,  "  have 
been  much  delighted  with  the  procession  of 
furniture,  in  which  old  swords,  bows,  tar- 
gets, and  lances  made  a  very  conspicuous 
show.  A  family  of  turkeys  was  accom- 
modated within  the  helmet  of  some  p^^eux 
chevalier  of  ancient  Border  fame ;  and  the 
very  cows,  for  ought  I  know,  were  bearing 
banners  and  muskets.  I  assure  your  lady- 
ship that  this  caravan,  attended  by  a  dozen 
of  ragged,  rosy  peasant  children,  carrying 
fishing-rods  and  spears,  and  leading  pon- 
ies, greyhounds,  and  spaniels,  would,  as  it 
crossed  the  Tweed,  have  furnished  no  bad 
84 


ABBOT  SFORD 

subject  for  the  pencil,  and  really  reminded 
me  of  one  of  the  gypsy  groups  of  Callot  up- 
on their  march." 

For  the  next  twelve  years  Abbotsford 
was  in  the  making.  From  a  mere  cottage, 
which  it  was  at  first,  it  passed  to  the  villa 
stage,  finishing  up  with  what  Scott  termed 
a  "manor-house,"  albeit  a  "castle"  more  or 
less.  That  was  in  1824,  after  which  date 
the  building  remained  without  alteration 
till  the  Hope  Scott  period  in  1853.  Mean- 
while the  estate  itself  had  stretched  out 
considerably.  The  hundred  acres  had  grown 
to  over  a  thousand,  for  all  of  which  fabu- 
lous prices  ^vere  paid  to  the  greedy  "cock- 
lairds"  of  the  locality.  From  first  to  last 
the  total  outlay  in  the  construction  of  Ab- 
botsford, including  purchases  of  land  and 
house  furnishings,  could  not  have  been 
short  of  £75,000. 

Opinions  differ  as  to  the  character  of  the 

building.     Let  us  remember  that  it  was 

reared  on  no  set  plan,  but  with  a  desire  to 

reproduce  some  of  the  features  of  the  an- 

85 


FOOTSTEPS      OF      SCOTT 

cient  baronial  style  which  Scott  so  much 
admired.  It  is  curious  to  contrast  the  view 
taken  of  the  place  during  Scott's  lifetime 
with  that  which  has  been  expressed  since 
his  day.  At  first  it  was  all  praise  and  flat- 
tery. Then,  we  read  of  "  a  perfect  picture  of 
the  wonderful  owner's  mind  " ;  of  "  a  poem 
in  stone";  of  "a  mosaic  of  Scottish  history"; 
of  a  resemblance  to  "places  one  dreams 
about " ;  of  "  a  romance  in  stone  and  lime"; 
and  so  on.  Later,  we  are  confronted  with 
statements  about  "  the  ugly  Abbotsf ord  " ; 
about  "the  most  incongruous  pile  that  gen- 
tlemanly modernism  ever  designed";  about 
"a  sad  piece  of  patch-work";  and  many 
other  architectural  enormities. 

Is  Abbotsf  ord  ugly?  and  is  it  a  super- 
latively gloomy  spot?  Surely  not !  Stripped 
of  its  associations,  there  is  nothing  special- 
ly depressing  about  it.  To  recall  the  tra- 
gedy of  its  owner's  last  years,  and  the  fate 
of  his  family,  introduces  an  element  of 
pathos,  to  be  sure,  but  it  does  not  affect 
the  complexion  of  the  place,  which  most 
86 


ABBOTSFORD,    NORTH    FRONT,    FACING 
THE  TWEED 

From  a  wafer-LO/our  drawing  by 
TOM  SCOTT,   R.S.A. 


' '  I  have  bought  a  property  in  the  neighbourhood,  extending 
along  the  banks  of  the  river  Tweed  for  about  half-a-mile.  It  is 
very  bleak  at  present,  having  little  to  recom?nend  it  but  the 
vicinity  of  the  river  ;  but  as  the  ground  is  well  adapted  by  nature 
to  grow  wood,  arid  is  considerably  various  inform  and  appearance, 
I  have  no  doubt  that  by  judicious  plantations  it  may  be  rendered 
a  very  pleasant  spot.  This  is  the  greatest  incident  which  has 
lately  taken  place  in  our  domestic  concerns,  and  I  assure  you  we 
are  not  a  little  proud  of  bei/ig  greeted  as  laird  and  lady  of 
Abbotsford." 

SCOTT,  iSii. 

"  About  July,  Abbotsford  will,  I  think,  be  finished,  when  I 
shall,  like  the  old  Duke  of  Queensberry  who  built  Drumlanrig, 
fold  up  the  accounts  in  a  sealed  parcel,  with  a  label  bidding  '  the 
del  I  pick  out  the  een   of  any  of  my  successors  that  shall  open  it." 

SCOTT,  1824. 


ABBOT  SFORD 

people  consider  a  singularly  delightful 
domicile  indeed.  "Irregular,"  "fantastic," 
"  bemldering  "  it  undoubtedly  is,  but  it  is 
not  distasteful ;  nor  is  it,  as  Dean  Stanley 
declared, "a  place  to  be  seen  once, and  never 
again."  As  a  matter  of  fact,  one  cannot 
pass  judgment  after  a  mere  cursory  visit. 
The  more  Abbotsford  is  known,  the  more 
must  its  real  beauty  and  genius  be  sym- 
pathetically understood  and  venerated. 

Unfortunately  for  the  present-day  visi- 
tor, the  exterior  of  the  edifice  is  little  in 
evidence.  A  glimpse  of  the  garden  front  is 
about  all  that  is  to  be  had;  and  the  north 
front,  facing  the  Tw^eed,  is  not  seen  at  all. 
As  it  is  the  latter  which  figures  most  prom- 
inently in  the  photographs,  readers  may  be 
reminded  that  this  is  really  the  back  of  the 
building,  the  entrance  being  turned  south- 
wards. It  is  rather  a  pity  that  arrange- 
ments cannot  be  made  for  the  fuller  in- 
spection of  an  abode  so  cosmopolitan  in 
its  interest.  To  enter  by  the  castellated 
gateway  into  the  beflowered  courtyard ;  to 
87 


FOOTSTEPS  OF  SCOTT 
stand  by  the  fountain  formed  from  part  of 
Edinburgh's  Cross, 

"Whence  royal  edict  rang, 
And  voice  of  Scotland's  law  was  sent 
In  glorious  trumpet-clang  " ; 

to  see  Maida's  effigy;  to  examine  the  Tol- 
booth  door,  or  the  porch  modelled  from  Lin- 
lithgow Palace,  and  the  numberless  relics  of 
antiquity  that  abound  in  every  corner,  and 
inmost  unlikely  places,  are  possibilities  that 
await  the  visitor  of  the  future.  It  was  Mr 
Hope  Scott  who  contrived  the  present  mode 
of  public  entrance  by  means  of  a  lane  leading 
from  the  Selkirk  road,  passing  beneath  the 
fine  freestone  screen  that  divides  the  court- 
yard from  the  gardens,  into  one  of  the  base- 
ment rooms,  whence  access  is  given  to  the 
apartments  above,  which  are  open  to  sight- 
seers. The  rest  of  the  house  is  in  occupation. 
The  usual  order  of  going  round  begins 
with  the  Study,  which  remains  very  much 
as  Scott  left  it.  The  room  is  of  fair  size,  and 
is  lighted  by  a  large  window  looking  out 
to  the  courtyard.  A  private  staircase  con- 
88 


ABBOTSFORD 

nects  it  with  the  bedroom  portion  of  the 
house.  In  the  Study  are  the  desk  at  which 
most  of  the  Waverleys  were  written ;  ^ 
Scott's  chair;  Lockhart's  chair;  and  the 
Wallace  chair,  presented  by  Train.  Scott's 
card-plate  and  a  print  of  Stothard's  Canter- 
bury Pilgrims  are  over  the  mantel-piece. 
There  is  the  portrait  of  Claverhouse  which 
probably  suggested  Old  Mortality,  and  por- 
traits of  Rob  Roy  and  Queen  Elizabeth.  In 
the  adjoining  turret-room,  which  Scott 
styled  his  Speak-a-Bit,  a  solitary  object  is 
the  death-mask  of  Sir  Walter — the  face  of 
a  brother  man  stretched  out  too  long  upon 
the  rack  of  this  rough  world.  The  majesty 
of  the  forehead  and  the  dour  earnestness  of 
the  features  tell  of  Walter  Scott  the  genius ; 
but  it  is  in  the  corners  of  the  mouth  that  all 
the  pathos  lies.  In  them  there  is  the  droop 
of  an  infinite  weariness,  and  it  makes  the 
heart  ache. 

^  Only  such  articles  as  are  more  intimately  connected  with 
Scott  are  mentioned  in  these  notes  on  the  Study  and  other 
apartments.  See  Mrs  Maxwell  Scott's  Catalogue  and  the 
present  writer's  Abhotsford  for  a  detailed  description. 

89 


FOOTSTEPS      OF      SCOTT 

The  Library  is  the  largest  and  finest  a- 
partment  in  the  house.  The  ceiling,  copied 
from  Melrose  and  Rosslyn,  is,  alas,  chiefly 
of  stucco  !  The  book-presses  contain  about 
10,000  volumes  (including  the  Study,  etc., 
there  are  twice  that  number).  Nearly  all 
the  furniture  in  this  room  was  presented  to 
Scott,  and  is  of  great  value.  Only  one  por- 
trait has  place  here — a  full-length  of  the 
second  Sir  Walter  (by  Sir  William  Allan). 
A  colonel  of  the  15th  Hussars,  he  served  in 
India  from  1839  to  1847,  and  died  at  sea 
near  the  Cape  on  his  way  home  to  Scotland. 
With  him  perished  the  hope  of  the  Scotts 
of  Abbotsford.  The  Chantrey  Bust  (1820), 
of  which  Lockhart  said  that  it  "alone  pre- 
serves for  posterity  the  cast  of  expression 
most  fondly  remembered  by  all  who  min- 
gled in  Scott's  domestic  circle,"  occupies 
a  conspicuous  niche  at  one  end  of  the  room. 
Relics  of  Scott  are  contained  in  the  glass 
table  by  the  fine  bow  window — Beardie's 
quaigh ;  the  knife  used  by  Scott  as  a  boy ; 
a  copy  of  the  miniature  referred  to  at  page 
90 


ABBOTSFORD 

27 ;  miniatures  of  Scott  at  the  time  of  his 
marriage,  and  of  Miss  Carpenter  and  her 
father. 

In  the  Drawing-Room  —  still  bearing 
(wonderfully  fresh)  the  Chinese  paper  pre- 
sented in  1822  by  Captain  Hugh  Scott — the 
paintings  include  that  of  Sir  Walter  by  Rae- 
burn ;  Lady  Scott  by  Saxon ;  Scott's  mother ; 
his  daughters  Anne  and  Sophia;  and  the 
Hon.  Mrs  Maxwell  Scott.  Amyas  Cawood's 
curious,  if  repulsive,  picture  of  the  Head  of 
Queen  Mary  after  decapitation  hangs  in 
this  apartment. 

Stepping  westward,  we  next  enter  the 
Armoury,  which  runs  right  across  the 
house,  making  a  sort  of  ante-room  between 
the  dining  and  the  drawing  rooms.  Here  are 
displayed  what  is  perhaps  the  finest  private 
collection  of  arms  in  the  world,  gathered 
out  of  all  ages  and  countries.  Relics  of  Rob 
Roy  are  outstanding — his  gun,  sword,  dirk, 
and  sporran.  The  place  of  honour,  however, 
must  be  given  to  the  sword  of  the  Great 
Marquis  of  Montrose,  a  "gabion"  for  which 
91 


FOOTSTEPS      OF      SCOTT 

Scott  was  indebted  to  John  Ballantyne. 
Claverhouse's  pistols;  Sir  Walter  s  own  gun 
and  accoutrements  worn  by  him  when  a 
yeoman  in  the  Edinburgh  Light  Dragoons ; 
the  second  Sir  Walter's  sword  and  spurs ; 
the  kej^s  of  Loch  Leven  Castle;  Queen 
Mary's  crucifix;  the  rifle  of  Andreas  Hoffer, 
the  Tyrolese  patriot — these  are  the  most 
noteworthy  of  the  other  objects.  The  Ar- 
moury paintings  illustrate  the  domestic 
side  of  Scott's  life.  Here  hang  portraits  of 
Tom  Purdie  (by  Landseer) ;  of  John  Swans- 
ton,  Purdie's  successor;  of  Peter  Mathieson 
(coachman)  with  "  Donald  "  the  pony ;  of 
"Hinseof  Hinsfeldt,"  Scott's  cat;  and  his  dog 
"  Ginger."  Kirkpatrick  Sharpe's  sketches 
should  be  noted,  as  well  as  Greenshields's 
statuette  of  Scott — sic  sedebat.  The  En- 
trance Hall  comes  last,  with  its  pretty  Bel- 
lenden  windows,  "  shedding  a  sort  of  rich, 
red  twilight"  around  the  spacious  apart- 
ment and  its  trophies.  "To  cover  the  walls 
of  a  stone  house  in  Selkirkshire,"  wrote 
Carlyle  (forgetting  for  the  moment  that  Ab- 
92 


ABBOTSFORD 

botsf  ord  is  in  Roxburghshire),  "  with  nick- 
nacks,  ancient  armour,  and  genealogical 
shields,  what  can  we  name  it  but  a  being 
bit  with  a  delirium  of  a  kind?"  But  it  was 
Scott's  hobby,  and  how  has  humanity  pro- 
fited by  it!  The  "genealogical  shields"  al- 
luded to,  adorn  the  ceiling  of  the  Entrance 
Hall,  running  along  both  sides,  with  the 
inscription  in  black  letter : 

^\)i^e  be  tl)c  (Joat  ^irmouriiS  of  pe  dlannts;  anb 
men  of  name  qttl)a^ccptt  tl)c  ^cottbl)  JEartljesi 
in  ge  Dans  ot  anlb.  Stljeg  mere  tDortl)ic  in  tl)air 
tgme  anb  in  tl)air  iiefcnjS  ^oii  tl)aim  befcnbii). 
The  arms  of  Scott's  own  ancestors  occupy 
a  range  of  shields  down  the  centre  of  the 
roof,  thirteen  of  which  are  emblazoned  with 
the  names  and  arms  of  the  families  with 
whom  he  counted  kin.    The  armour  suits 
are  fine  specimens.    The  largest  is  believed 
to  have  belonged  to  Sir  John  Cheney,  the 
biggest    man  who  fought   at    Bosworth. 
Here  also  are  Archbishop  Sharp's  grate; 
Ralph  Erskine's  pulpit,  turned  into  a  wine- 
cupboard;    the    keys    of    the   Edinburgh 
93 


FOOTSTEPS  OF  SCOTT 
Tolbooth ;  the  Hermitage  touting-horn,  a 
relic  of  the  Minstrelsy  "  raids " ;  Marie 
Antoinette's  clock;  "the  mistletoe  chest 
where  Ginevra  lay"  (more  than  one  Italian 
city  shows  the  true  original !) ;  and,  most 
touching  of  all,  the  last  suit  worn  by  the 
Wizard  of  Abbotsford.  "When  I  was  at  Ab- 
botsf  ord,"  wrote  Dickens  in  1851,  "  I  saw  in 
a  glass  case  the  last  clothes  Scott  wore. 
Among  them  an  old  white  hat,  which 
seemed  to  be  tumbled  and  bent  and  broken 
by  the  uneasy,  purposeless  wandering 
hither  and  thither  of  his  heavy  head.  It  so 
embodied  Lockhart's  pathetic  description 
of  him  when  he  tried  to  write  and  laid  down 
his  pen  and  cried,  that  it  associated  itself 
in  my  mind  with  broken  power  and  mental 
weakness  from  that  hour." 

The  Dining-room,  looking  out  on  the 
Tweed,  is  not  open  to  the  public.  Portraits 
of  Scott's  ancestors  adorn  the  walls  —  por- 
traits which,  it  is  said,  he  was  never  tired 
of  examining.  Within  the  window  alcove, 
the  last  act  of  the  tragedy  was  played 
94 


ABBOTSFORD 

out  exactly  seventy-five  years  ago  as  these 
lines  are  being  written. 

Onthe  Abbotsford  estate  are  Chief  swood, 
the  "bower"  to  which  Lockhart  brought  his 
bride  in  1821.  Part  of  The  Pirate  was 
penned  here ;  and  on  the  lawn  inf  ront,  little 
Johnnie  Lockhart  ("  Hugh  Littlejohn "), 
Scott's  grandchild,  always  delicate,  heard 
the  first  of  those  Tales  of  a  Gi^andfather, 
which  still  remain  the  best  popular  History 
of  Scotland.  Much  of  Lockhart's  own  good 
work  was  done  at  Chief  swood — Valerius; 
Adam  Blair;  and  not  a  few  of  the  Spanish 
Ballads.  The  "runnel"  behind,  originally 
Dick's  Cleugh,  Scott  christened  the  "Rhy- 
mer's Glen."  It  was  a  misnomer,  but  Scott 
liked  to  cherish  the  fancy  that  his  own  do- 
main contained  the  scene  of  True  Thomas's 
liaison  with  the  Fairy  Queen.  Cauldshiels 
Loch  bounds  the  estate  on  the  north.  Here 
Scott  wrote  (in  1817)  the  most  personally 
pathetic  of  his  verses,  beginning, 

"  The  sun  upon  the  Weirdlaw  Hill 
In  Ettrick's  vale  is  sinking  sweet ; 

95 


FOOTSTEPS      OF      SCOTT 

The  westland  wind  is  hush  and  still — 
The  lake  lies  sleeping  at  my  feet." 

Huntlyburn  (originally  Toftfield),  the  re- 
sidence of  Sir  Adam  Ferguson,  and  Kaeside, 
Laidlaw's  house  on  the  heights,  are  both 
embraced  in  the  Abbotsford  area.  Upon 
Faldonside,  adjoining  Abbotsford  on  the 
west,  Scott  cast  longing  eyes,  and  actually 
offered  £30,000  for  it,  but  Nicol  Milne  was 
obdurate.  For  Scott's  good,  surely!  Darnick 
Tower,  too,  fascinated  him,  and  John  Heit- 
on  was  equally  unbending.^ 

Of  Scott's  manifolded  life  at  Abbotsford 
there  is  no  need  to  write  at  length.  Lockhart 
has  done  that  once  for  all,  and  a  perusal  of 
Basil  Hall's  "Journal,"  embodied  in  the 
Biography,  together  with  Washington 
Irving's  essay,  make  plain  to  us  the  real 
man  in  Walter  Scott.  Albeit  the  Enchanter 

'  Faldonside  belonged  in  1566  to  Andrew  Ker,  who  was 
embroiled  in  the  Rizzio  affair.  He  married  John  li^nox's 
widow.  Darnick  has  been  a  Heiton  holding  from  the  16th 
century.  The  Tower  is  in  admirable  preservation,  and  con- 
tains a  fine  collection  of  relics  and  curios.  It  is  open  to  the 
public.  One  of  its  owners,  also  a  John  Heiton,  was  author  of 
The  Castes  of  Edinburgh. 

96 


ABBOTS  FORD 

for  the  touch  of  whose  wand  the  world  was 
waiting  eagerly,  it  is  the  simplicity  of  the 
Abbotsford  life  which  provokes  admira- 
tion. Scott  was  not,  in  his  ordinary  life  at 
any  rate,  the  aristocrat  he  is  said  by  some 
to  have  mostly  shown  himself.  Sprung  of 
"  gentle  birth,"  as  well  as  having  raised 
himself  by  his  own  abilities  to  a  great 
position,  and  proud  of  it,  no  doubt,  he  was 
still  one  of  the  humblest  of  Nature's  gen- 
tlemen ;  as  much  at  home  amongst  the  poor 
and  the  undistinguished  as  in  the  company 
of  peers  of  the  realm,  or  royal  George  him- 
self. Abbotsford  had  no  more  joyful  hours 
for  Scott  than  those  spent  in  the  fellow- 
ship of  common  men  like  Laidlaw,  and 
Tom  Purdie,  and  Joseph  Shillinglaw.  Is 
not  the  finest  tribute  to  Scott's  worth  as 
master  and  man  seen  in  the  statement 
made  by  one  of  his  servants,  "  He  speaks 
to  us  as  if  we  were  blood  relations " ?  Ab- 
botsford, it  is  said,  was  like  a  little  happy 
world  of  its  own — a  most  emphatic  excep- 
tion to  the  cynic's  rule.  In  the  disillusion- 
97  7 


FOOTSTEPS      OF      SCOTT 

ising  domain  of  domestic  life,  the  hero  who 
never  altered  was  Scott. 

The  "strenuous  life,"  a  phrase  which 
covers  so  much,  was  practised  to  the  full 
by  Scott  at  Abbotsf ord.  How  he  managed 
to  get  through  such  an  amount  of  work, 
and,  at  the  same  time,  to  appear  so  much 
at  leisure,  was  a  source  of  surprise  to  his 
friends.  "I  know,"  said  Cadell,  his  pub- 
lisher, once  to  him,  "  that  you  contrive  to 
get  a  few  hours  in  your  own  room,  and  that 
may  do  for  the  mere  pen-work,  but  when 
is  it  that  you  think  ?  "  "  Oh,"  said  Scott,  "  I 
lie  simmering  over  things  for  an  hour  or  so 
before  I  get  up,  and  there's  the  time  I  am 
dressing,  to  overhaul  my  half -sleeping,  half - 
waking  projet  de  chapitre,  and  when  I  get 
the  paper  before  me  it  commonly  runs  off 
pretty  easily.  Besides,  I  often  take  a  doze 
in  the  plantations,  and  while  Tom  marks 
out  a  dyke  or  a  drain  as  I  have  directed, 
one's  fancy  may  be  running  its  ain  riggs  in 
some  other  world." 

His  maxim  was  never  to  be  doing  noth- 


ABBOTSFORD 

ing,  and  in  making  the  most  of  liis  time 
he  served  both  himself  and  others.  One 
may  mention,  also,  the  more  than  hospit- 
able manner  in  which  he  was  wont  to 
entertain  his  constant  army  of  guests,  and 
to  treat  with  amazing  urbanity  the  hosts 
of  the  uninvited. 

In  his  more  sacred  relationships,  Abbots- 
ford  had  very  tender  memories  for  Scott. 
Gossip's  rancorous  tongue  has  not  been 
silent,  assuredly.  But  whatever  it  may 
have  said,  Lockhart's  chapters  afford  ster- 
ling proof  of  the  comfort  and  the  affection 
and  the  pleasure  which  characterised  the 
whole  family  life.  Lady  Scott  made  him 
an  excellent  wife,  notwithstanding  her 
Frenchified  ways  and  her  utter  lack  of  sym- 
pathy with  the  literary  life.  There  are  no 
passages  in  the  Journal  more  truly  touch- 
ing than  those  written  at  the  time  of  his 
deep  agony.  In  his  children,  Scott  was  un- 
fortunate. None  of  the  four  were  ever 
strong  physically,  and  none  of  them  were 
long-livers.  They  were  the  joy  of  his  life, 
99 


FOOTSTEPS      OF      SCOTT 

both  at  Abbotsford  and  Edinburgh,  but 
how  soon  after  his  own  candle  was  extin- 
guished did  their  brief  hghts  burn  out! 
Anne  (the  original  of  Alice  Lee  in  Wood- 
stock), his  younger  daughter,  died  less  than 
a  year  after  her  father ;  Mrs  Lockhart,  in 
little  more  than  four  years  and  a  half; 
Charles,  the  younger  son,  within  nine,  and 
Walter  within  fifteen  years.  Anne  and 
Sophia  lie  in  Kensal  Green  Cemetery,  Lon- 
don ;  Charles  at  Teheran ;  ^  and  Walter  at 
Dryburgh. 

As  to  the  fortunes  of  Abbotsford  from 
1847,  Walter  Scott  Lockhart,  a  Lieutenant 
in  the  16th  Lancers,  Lockhart's  younger 
son,  succeeded  his  uncle,  but  died  un- 
married in  1853.  His  sister  Charlotte 
thereupon  came  into  possession.  She  was 
the  wife  of  James  Robert  Hope,  Q.C.,  who, 
on  her  succeeding  to  Abbotsford,  assumed 
the  family  name  of  Scott.  It  is  to  Mr 
Hope  Scott  that  Abbotsford  owes  its  re- 

^  He  was  private  secretary  to  Sir  John  McNeill,  Commis- 
sioner to  the  Persian  Court.  His  remains  lie  in  the  Armenian 
Church.     The  grave  is  in  excellent  condition. 

100 


ABBOTSFORD    ' 

construction.  He  did  wonders  for  the 
place,  which  had  been  sadly  neglected 
since  1832.  He  added  a  new  west  wing,  and 
effected  many  improvements,  both  inter- 
nally and  externally.  Upon  his  death  in 
1873,  x\bbotsf  ord  went  to  his  only  daughter 
by  Charlotte  Lockhart,  his  first  wife ;  and 
in  1874  that  daughter,  Mary  Monica  Hope 
Scott,  then  sole  surviving  descendant  of 
Sir  Walter  Scott,  was  wedded  to  the  Hon. 
Joseph  Constable-Maxwell,  third  son  of 
the  eleventh  Baron  Herries  of  Terregles. 
Of  this  marriage  there  are  four  sons  and 
three  daughters.  On  the  eldest,  Walter,  an 
officer  in  the  Army,  who  saw  service  in 
South  Africa,  many  hopes  are  centred. 
As  heir  to  Abbotsf  ord,  and  the  bearer  of  a 
name  so  illustrious,  may  it  also  be  said  of 
him  that  "  the  might  of  the  whole  world's 
good  wishes  with  him  goes  "  I 


CHAPTER  V 

FOOTPRINTS  OF  WAVERLEY 

In  the  popular  imagination,  Abbotsford  is 
regarded  as  the  birthplace  of  all  the  Wav- 
erleys.  Students  of  Scott  know,  however, 
that  comparatively  few  of  the  Novels  were 
written  there.  Castle  Street  saw  the  gene- 
sis of  at  least  three-fourths,  and  it  was  there 
that  Waverley  itself  was  licked  into  shape. 
Curiously,  the  associations  of  Waverley, 
the  first  of  the  brilliant  galaxy,  are  with 
Scott's  three  houses,  Ashestiel,  Abbotsford, 
and  39  Castle  Street.  Ashestiel  may  be  said 
to  be  the  cradling-ground  of  the  romance. 
"Contentedly,"  says  Ruskin  (writing  of 
Ashestiel),  "  in  such  space  and  splendour  of 
domicile,  Waverley  was  begun."  The  date 
seems  to  have  been  1805  (the  year  of  The  Lay), 
as  Lockhart  assumed  from  the  water-mark 
of  the  manuscript.  At  that  time  Scott  had 
written  seven  chapters.  The  work  was  an- 
102 


FOOTPRINTS  OF  WAVERLEY 
nounced  as  a  coming  publication,  and  so 
would  have  appeared  eight  years  earlier 
than  it  did  but  for  the  advice  of  WiU  Ers- 
kine,  who  was  only  "  faintly  interested  "  in 
Scott's  new  venture. 

The  MS.  was  accordingly  set  aside,  to 
lie  unheeded  for  five  years.  James  Ballan- 
tyne  saw  it  in  1810,  but  gave  no  encourage- 
ment. Again  it  was  put  past,  and  lost  sight 
of  for  other  three  years.  By  a  mere  acci- 
dent, the  missing  sheets  were  discovered  in 
a  kind  of  odds-and-ends  cabinet  at  Abbots- 
ford,  into  which  Scott  happened  to  look 
for  fishing  flies.  This  time  his  own  better 
judgment  made  him  go  on  vtdth  the  story. 
So  rapidly  did  he  execute  his  purpose  that 
the  remainder  of  it  was  accomplished 
within  the  almost  incredible  space  of  three 
weeks,  the  evenings  principally,  during 
the  months  of  May  and  June  1813.  Lock- 
hart's  incident  of  "the  hand"  is  so  well 
known  that  it  may  only  be  referred  to  as 
showing  that  the  bulk  of  the  novel  was  a 
product  of  the  "  den  "  at  Castle  Street.  On 
103 


FOOTSTEPS  OF  SCOTT 
July  7th,  1814,  Waverley  was  given  to  the 
world  anonymously  in  three  volumes,  at  the 
price  of  a  guinea  and  a  half,  the  sum  which 
obtained  so  long  for  the  older-fashioned 
form  of  fiction.  The  1000  copies  which  made 
up  the  first  edition  disappeared  within  a 
month,  a  second  issue  of  2000  being  on  sale 
during  August.  Before  the  end  of  the  year, 
3000  more  had  been  called  for,  and  up  to  the 
date  of  the  Life,  Lockhart  comj)utes  the  cir- 
culation at  40,000.  ^  It  is  stated  that  Waver- 
ley was  offered  to  a  London  publisher,  who 
refused  it.  Ballantyne  then  opened  up  ne- 
gotiations with  Constable,  who  haggled 
about  the  price,  and  offered  £700.  Event- 
ually the  half-profits  plan  was  agreed  to, 
though  Constable  afterwards  regretted 
that  he  did  not  accept  Ballantyne's  offer  of 
£1000  for  the  complete  copyright. 

1  Compared  witli  the  circulation  of  some  present-day  novels, 
this  figure  is  trifling.  But  the  conditions  between  then  and 
now  have  vastly  altered.  The  taste  for  fiction  has  been 
whetted  to  an  enormous  degree,  while  the  j)rice  of  books  has 
steadily  decreased.  See  Chapter  VIII.  for  a  consideration 
of  the  Scott  literature  to-day. 

104 


FOOTPRINTS  OF  WAVERLEY 
In  a  sense,  one  may  be  sorry  that  Scott 
listened  to  Erskine's  condemnation.  But 
for  that,  what  treasures  more  might  we  not 
have  had?  Don  Roderick;  Rokeby;  The 
Bridal  of  Triermain,  could  well  have  been 
sacrificed  for  the  ten  or  twelve  novels  that, 
judging  by  the  future  output  at  any  rate, 
were  amply  possible  within  the  period. 
It  cannot  be  doubted  that  Waverley  would 
have  been  as  great  a  success  in  1805  as  it 
was  in  1814.  But  the  years  between  were 
far  from  being  idly  spent,  and  Scott  was 
doubtless  the  better  equipped  for  this  the 
real  work  of  his  life  when  its  full  time  had 
come. 

The  sub- title,  'Tis  Sixty  Years  Since,  car- 
ries the  romance  back  to  the 'Forty-five,  the 
most  memorable  episode  in  Scottish  his- 
tory. With  every  phase  of  the  Rising,  its 
localities  and  actors,  Scott  was  on  famil- 
iar ground.  The  theme  appealed  to  his 
strongly  romantic  temperament,  and  the 
chapters,  after  the  story  has  been  really  en- 
tered upon,  never  fail  to  fascinate  with 
105 


FOOTSTEPS  OF  SCOTT 
their  rare  flow  of  energy,  and  the  fine  his- 
toric sense  to  which  they  are  attuned.  For- 
tunate it  was  for  Scotland  that  Jacobitism 
ended  as  it  did !  Who  is  there,  however, 
who  has  not  a  more  or  less  sneaking  admir- 
ation for  the  heroes  and  heroines  of  the  ill- 
starred  attempt  ?  None  may  question  the 
sincerity  of  those  who  made  such  risks  for 
one  who,  after  all,  showed  himself  not  al- 
together worthy  of  the  love  lavished  upon 
him  or  the  blood  spilled  on  his  behalf. 

The  Waverley  arena  confines  itself  chief- 
ly to  the  Perth  Highlands,  though  the 
exigencies  of  the  story  lead  to  other  parts 
of  Scotland,  and  to  the  English  Border, 
where  the  closing  tragic  scenes  are  enact- 
ed. Tradition  ascribes  the  impress  of  a 
man's  fingers  on  a  window-sill  at  Carlisle 
Castle  as  the  work  of  MacDonald  of  Tyne- 
drish,  a  prototype  of  the  gallant  Fergus 
Mac-Ivor.  The  "solemn  and  chivalrous" 
Baron  of  Bradwardine  is  like  enough  to 
have  been  the  fourth  Lord  Forbes  of  Pits- 
ligo,  who  was  "  out "  in  the  '15  and  the  '45. 
106 


FOOTPRINTS  OF  WAVERLEY 
Davie  Gellatley,"no  further  a  fool  than  was 
necessary  to  avoid  hard  labour,"  was  drawn, 
as  Robert  Chambers  thinks,  from  daft  Jock 
Gray  of  Gilmanscleuch,  in  Ettrick,  a  wan- 
dering rustic  known  to  all  the  Border. 
TuUy-Veolan,  the  mansion  of  the  story,  has 
a  plethora  of  originals.  Traquair  is  as  good 
as  any,  but  GrantuUy  and  Craighall,^  in 
Perthshire ;  Bruntsfield,  Craigcrook,  Ravel- 
ston,  all  Edinburgh  houses,  and  the  Gallo- 
way Kenmure,  are  claimants. 

Guy  Mmmering,  the  second  of  the  Wav- 
erleys,  followed  in  1815.  It  was  the  work 
of  a  winter  six  weeks,  at  Abbotsford 
mostly,  and  was  the  equal  of  its  prede- 
cessor in  popularity.    The  first  edition  of 

1  "  From  the  position  of  this  striking  place  [Craighall],  as 
Mr  Clerk  at  once  perceived,  and  as  the  author  afterwards 
confessed  to  him,  that  of  Tally- Veolan  was  very  faithfully 
copied  ;  though  in  the  description  of  the  house  itself,  and 
its  garden,  many  features  were  adopted  from  Bruntsfield  and 
Ravelston." — Lockhart.  It  is  curious  to  find  Lockhart 
passing  over  Traquair,  which  exhibits  so  remarkable  a 
resemblance  to  the  mansion  depicted  in  the  story.  Without 
doubt,  Scott  had  this  ancient  history-haunted  pile  in  his 
mind's  eye  at  the  time  he  began  Waverley,  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  he  was  then  living  within  a  few  miles  of  it. 

107 


FOOTSTEPS      OF      SCOTT 

2000  was  sold  out  on  the  day  of  publication. 
Within  three  months  second  and  third 
editions  were  issued,  and  the  sales  previous 
to  1829  made  a  total  of  10,000.  For  the 
novel,  Scott  received  the  sum  of  £2000. 
Next  to  Old  Mortality,  Guy  Mannering  is 
unquestionably  the  finest  romance  from 
Scott's  pen.  Ruskin  places  it  before  In 
Memoriam.  Wilkie  Collins  read  it  fifty 
times  over.  GilfiUan  declares  that  it  runs 
as  one  sentence.  Much  of  the  plot  drew  its 
inspiration  from  Joseph  Train,  that  good 
Galloway  ganger  to  whom  the  world  owes 
such  a  debt.  But  for  Train,  who  freely  gave 
up  his  own  literary  ambitions^  to  become  a 
kind  of  lion's  provider  to  Scott,  Guy  Man- 
nering might  not  have  been  heard  of.  Nor 
Old  Mortality  either,  to  be  sure !   For,  as 

^  Train  (1779-1852),  an  excise-officer,  was  author  of  a  vol- 
ume of  poems,  Strains  of  the  Mountain  Muse,  the  publication 
of  which,  in  1814,  brought  him  into  communication  with 
Soott.  His  other  works  were  a  History  of  the  Isle  of  Man, 
and  The  Buchanites  from  First  to  Last.  He  died  at  Castle- 
Douglas,  and  on  his  tombstone,  in  Kelton  Kirkyard,  he  is 
commemorated  as  "the  friend  and  correspondent  of  Sir 
Walter  Scott."    See  Memoir  by  John  Patterson. 

108 


FOOTPRINTS    OF    WAVERLEY 

we  shall  see,  that,  too,  was  Train's  sugges- 
tion. A  fortunate  relationship  for  Scott, 
and  for  literary  history !  In  the  sphere  of 
letters  there  is  no  more  pleasing  record  of 
self-abnegation. 

Guy  Mannering  belongs  to  Galloway. 
There  is  only  the  scantiest  evidence  to  show 
that  Scott  ever  was  in  the  Stewartry.  But 
having  Train  for  his  guide  was  sufficient 
for  the  topography  of  the  tale.  Hence  the 
true  Guy  Mannering  Country,  despite  the 
claims  of  more  than  one  other  district,  is 
not  unlikely  to  be  that  lying  between  Gate- 
house-of- Fleet  and  Creetown,  the  coast  line 
of  which  was  described  by  Queen  Victoria  as 
"  the  most  beautiful  shore-road  in  Britain." 
The  striking  resemblances  between  the 
scenery  painted  in  the  novel  and  that  in 
the  neighbourhood  of  Ravenshall,  can 
scarcely  be  regarded  as  a  coincidence. 
Architecturally  considered,  Ellangowan  is, 
of  course,  Caerlaverock  Castle,  on  the  Nith 
side  of  the  Solway.  But  beyond  that  cir- 
cumstance, there  is  no  reason  to  doubt  that 
109 


FOOTSTEPS      OF      SCOTT 

Scott — whether  he  were  ever  in  Kirkcud- 
brightshire or  not — had  in  his  mind's  eye 
the  locaUties  that  Train  had  mapped  out 
for  him,  localities  with  which  no  one  was 
more  familiar. 

The  gypsy  part  of  Guy  Mannering  Scott 
gathered  from  his  father's  memory  of  the 
redoubtable  Jean  Gordon  of  Yetholm,  and 
his  own  recollection  of  her  no  less  Amazon- 
ian grand-daughter,  "a  woman  of  more 
than  female  height,  dressed  in  a  long  red 
cloak,  who  commenced  acquaintance  by 
giving  me  an  apple,  but  whom,  neverthe- 
less, I  looked  upon  with  much  awe."  Meg 
Merrilies  was  either  the  one  or  the  other, 
or  a  compound  of  both.  Dominie  Sampson 
was  drawn,  as  Lockhart  supposes,  from 
George  Thomson,  son  of  the  minister  of 
Melrose:  a  possible  original,  although  it  is 
not  at  all  improbable  that  Scott  was  think- 
ing of  James  Sanson,  tutor  to  the  Elliston 
Scotts,  and  latterly  occupant  of  i)reaching 
stations,  first  at  Caerlanrig  (now  Teviot- 
head),  then  at  Leadhills,  where  he  died  in 
110 


FOOTPRINTS    OF    WAVERLEY 

1794.  Sanson  assuredly  answers  to  the 
Dominie's  every  characteristic,  and  in  a 
quaint  sketch  of  him  (in  the  possession  of 
the  present  writer),  procured  in  the  Earls- 
ton  district,  of  which  Sanson  was  a  native, 
he  is  expressly  designated  as  Scott's  origi- 
nal. Dandie  Dinmont,  the  best  rustic  pic- 
ture that  has  ever  been  exhibited  to  the 
reading  public,  is  doubtless  a  composite 
character,  made  up  of  Willie  Laidlaw  plus 
Elliot  of  Millburnholm  (Charlieshope)  and 
Archie  Park  of  Lewinshope  (Thorlieshope), 
whose  wife  was  an  "Ailie."  Scott  did  not 
meet  Davidson  of  Hindlee,  owner  of  all  the 
Mustards  and  Peppers,  till  some  years  after 
the  novel  was  written.  Dirk  Hatteraick, 
"half  Manx,  half  Dutchman,  half  devil," 
was  a  Dutch  skipper  yclept  Yawkins.  Tod 
Gabbie  was  studied  from  Tod  Willie,  the 
huntsman  of  the  hills  above  Loch  Skene. 
Colonel  Mannering  was,  as  Hogg  put  it, 
"just  Walter  Scott  painted  by  himself."  In 
Julia  Mannering  we  have  a  portrait  from 
the  life  of  Miss  Carpenter.  Gilsland,  where 
111 


FOOTSTEPS      OF      SCOTT 

Scott  and  the  latter  became  acquainted, fig- 
ures in  the  incident  of  Mumps  Ha',  whose 
site  is  still  pointed  out.  Tib  Mumps  [Mar- 
garet Carrick]  herself  lies  in  the  churchyard 
of  Denton  among  the  Cumberland  hills. 

The  publication  of  the  third  of  the  Wav- 
erley  series  in  May  1816  was  followed  by 
the  fourth— the  first  of  The  Tales  of  My 
Landlord — in  December,  making  no  fewer 
than  three  novels  in  one  year.  Those  were 
The  Antiquary  (Scotf  8  own  favourite),  with 
Old  Mortality,  the  most  fanatically  criti- 
cised, and,  curiously.  The  Black  Divarf,  one 
of  the  least  interesting  of  the  number.  Cop- 
ies of  The  Antiquary  went  off  at  the  rate  of 
a  thousand  a  day  for  the  first  week,  and  of 
the  Tales,  three  editions,  making  a  total  of 
6000,  were  at  press  within  six  weeks.  As 
Waverley  dealt  with  the  days  of  his  fathers, 
and  Guy  Mannering  with  those  of  his  own 
youth,  so  The  Antiquai'y  pictured  a  period 
only  some  ten  or  fifteen  years  back,  an  era 
that  was  still  remembered  by  reason  of  its 
political  unrest  and  alarms  of  French  in- 
112 


FOOTPRINTS  OF  WAVERLEY 
vasion.  It  is  the  charm  of  this  latter  tale 
that,  whilst  lacking  the  romance  and  ex- 
citement of  its  predecessors,  it  can  at  least 
claim  to  be  painted  direct  from  nature, 
and  to  be  redolent  of  that  rusticity  of 
life  and  manners  so  relished  by  its  author. 
There  are  no  more  perfect  little  gems  of 
portraiture  than  The  Antiquary  contains. 
Here  we  have  Scottish  peasant  life  at  its 
best.  The  little  seaside  village,  with  its 
play  of  light  and  shade,  its  intrigues,  its 
gossip,  its  round  of  comedy  and  tragedy,  are 
limned  by  the  hand  of  a  Master  who  makes 
every  one  of  his  characters  live  and  move 
like  real  creatures  of  flesh  and  blood,  rather 
than  of  the  imagination.  For  a  piece  of 
humorous  writing,  the  post-office  scene  in 
the  fifteenth  chapter  has  been  seldom 
matched,  even  by  its  own  author.  The  locale 
of  the  novel  is  considered  to  be  the  fish- 
ing-villages of  the  Arbroath  coast.  Ar- 
broath itself  is  Fairport,  and  either  Auch- 
mitliie  or  Ethie  Haven  stands  for  Mussel- 
crag.  Ethie  Castle  is  the  Knockwinnock, 
113  8 


FOOTSTEPS      OF      SCOTT 

as  Hospitalfield  is  the  Monkbarns  of  the 
story.  Portobello  and  Musselburgh  are  not, 
as  has  been  suggested,  the  locahties  in 
question.  The  figure  of  the  Antiquary  was 
modelled  from  "that  dear  friend  of  my 
father's,"  George  Constable  (see  page  27) ; 
but,  as  Lockhart  says,  there  is  also  a  hint  of 
Scott  himself.  Sir  Walter  does  indeed  give 
himself  away  in  his  "  Gabions  "  fragment, 
where  he  actually  assumes  the  name  of 
Jonathan  Oldbuck.  Old  Sir  John  Clerk  of 
Dumcrieff  was  the  hero  of  the  story,  "Prae- 
torium  here,  praetorium  there,  I  made  it 
wi'  a  flaughter  spade." 

As  to  the  original  of  Edie  Ochiltree— 
"that  mirror  of  j)hilosophic  vagabonds  and 
Nestor  of  beggars,"  as  Washington  Irving 
described  him — there  is  no  dispute.  He  was 
Andrew  Gemmels,  the  most  noted  blue- 
gown  of  the  Borders,  whom  Scott  had  seen 
at  Kelso  and  elsewhere,  and  heard  from  his 
own  lips  the  story  of  his  soldierings  and 
wanderings  after  Fontenoy.  A  songster 
and  a  romancer,  a  mimic,  and  a  satirist  of 
114 


FOOTPRINTS  OF  WAVERLEY 
the  first  water,  Andrew  was  a  very  persona 
grata  (despite  his  tongue)  throughout  his 
long  Kfe  spent  by  Tweed  and  Teviot.  He 
lived  to  his  106th  year,  and  was  buried  at 
Roxburgh. 

Lockhart  tells  how,  a  few  days  after  the 
publication  of  The  Antiquary,  Scott  was 
visited  at  Edinburgh  by  Train,  who  brought 
with  him  several  curios  for  the  Abbotsf ord 
Collection  (Rob  Roy's  spleuchan  among 
them),  at  the  same  time  handing  over  a 
fresh  sheaf  of  traditionary  gleanings  which 
he  had  gathered  among  the  tale-tellers  of 
his  district.  Next  morning,  at  breakfast,  at 
least  two  new  novels  were  under  discussion. 
Old  Mortality  and  Roh  Roy.  To  Train  is  due 
the  honour  of  having  given  title  to  the  first 
of  these,  taken  from  Robert  Paterson,  alias 
"Old  Mortality,"  into  whose  mouth  the  rom- 
ance was  put,  as  was  The  Lay  into  that  of 
the  Minstrel.  An  unconscionably  eccentric 
individual  was  "  Old  Mortality's  "  prototype. 
A  native  of  Hawick  (not  Closeburn),  and  a 
mason  to  trade,  Paterson  developed  an  ex- 
115 


FOOTSTEPS  OF  SCOTT 
traordinary  mania  for  tombstone  repara- 
tions. For  over  forty  years  his  familiar 
figure  might  be  encountered  in  any  of  the 
Covenanting  burying  -  grounds  through  - 
out  Dumfries  and  Galloway,  or  Ayrshire. 
Hardly  a  monument  covering  the  dust  of 
the  faithful  but  bears  his  chisel's  impress ! 
Even  at  Dunnottar,  where  Scott  met  him 
in  1793,  he  plied  his  self-imposed  task.  Un- 
fortunately, some  features  in  his  career 
are  not  very  creditable.  It  is  impossible, 
for  instance,  to  condone  his  treatment  of 
his  wife  and  children,  whom  he  literally 
abandoned,  to  such  lengths  did  his  passion 
for  the  "  stones  "  lead  him.  Yet,  withal,  he 
did  a  good  work.  And  he  inspired  Old  Mor- 
tality. His  own  grave  atCaerlaverock  stood 
long  unmarked,  till  the  Messrs  Black,  of 
London,  the  publishers  of  Scott's  w^orks, 
erected  the  present  modest  memorial.  The 
scene  of  Old  Mortality  is  laid  chiefly  in 
Clydesdale.  Tillietudlem,  Lady  Bellenden's 
castle,  where  Morton  besieged  his  lady-love, 
and  the  zealous  Cuddie  Headrigg  was  re- 
116 


FOOTPRINTS    OF    WAVERLEY 

pulsed  by  the  scalding  kail-brose  of  the  co- 
quettish Jenny  Dennison,  had  its  original 
in  the  ruin  of  Craignethan,  once  the  proper- 
ty of  aLordEvandale.  The  wild  and  gloomy 
glens  of  Moffat  Water,  however,  and  the 
recesses  of  Loch  Skene  and  Gameshope — a 
conventicle  region  familiar  to  Scott  from 
early  days  —  were  laid  under  tribute  for 
much  of  the  scenery  of  the  story. 

Of  The  Black  Dwarf,  included  with  Old 
Mortality  in  the  Tales  of  My  Landlord, 
Lockhart  states  that  "  however  imperfect, 
and  unworthy,  as  a  work  of  art,  it  derives 
a  singular  interest  from  its  delineation  of 
the  dark  feelings  so  often  connected  with 
physical  deformity."  To  Scott,  though  him- 
self in  this  category,  there  were  no  such  feel- 
ings,— unlike  Byron,  whose  Trhole  life  was 
embittered  by  his  defect.  A  chance  meeting 
some  nineteen  years  previous  to  the  pub- 
lication of  the  novel,  furnished  Scott  with 
the  basal  matter  for  his  story.  On  the  way 
to  Gilsland,  in  July  1797,  he  stayed  for  a  day 
or  two  at  Hallyards,  in  Peeblesshire,  the 
117 


FOOTSTEPS      OF      SCOTT 

Fergusons'  summer  quarters.  Within  a 
mile  lived  David  Ritchie,  a  dwarf  less  than 
three  and  a  half  feet  in  height,  the  most 
extraordinary  personage  in  the  locality. 
There  is  pathos  in  his  past  history.  "  Like 
a  deer  hunted  froixi  the  herd,"  by  the  deri- 
sion of  his  fellow-men  he  had  been  driven 
from  his  occupation  of  brush  -  making 
(which  he  seems  to  have  followed  both  at 
Edinburgh  and  at  Dublin)  to  the  seclusion 
of  his  native  glens,  "where  he  sought,"  says 
Scott,  "  to  have  the  least  possible  commu- 
nication with  the  world  which  scoffed  at 
him."  Here  he  reared  a  hut  of  turf  and 
stones,  in  which,  along  with  a  sister,  he 
lived  till  the  year  1802,  when  the  cottage 
which  still  bears  his  name  was  erected, 
though  that  has  been  altered  considerably 
since  his  day.  The  dwarf  is  described  as 
having  an  oblong  skull,  so  hard  that  he 
could  strike  it  with  ease  through  a  door- 
panel  or  a  barrel-end.  He  had  deep -set 
black  eyes  and  ogreish  features — a  long, 
sharp  nose  meeting  his  far-projecting  chin; 
118 


FOOTPRINTS    OF    WAVERLEY 

legs  like  a  pair  of  corkscrews,  which  were 
never  allowed  to  be  seen  ;  fin-like  feet,  on 
which  he  never  wore  shoes,  but  pieces  of 
cloth ;  a  screech-owl  voice ;  and  an  almost 
demoniacal  laugh. 

To  AVilliam  Chambers  (who  was  present) 
we  are  indebted  for  the  narrative  of  Scott's 
interview  with  his  future  hero.  The  visitor's 
lameness  seemed  to  engender  a  bond  of 
sympathy  between  him  and  the  dwarf. 
Grinning  for  a  moment  with  a  smile  less 
bitter  than  his  wont,  the  dwarf  crossed  to 
the  door,  double-locked  it,  then  coming  up 
to  the  stranger,  seized  him  by  the  wrist,  say- 
ing, "  Man,  ha'e  ye  ony  poo'er  ?  "  meaning 
magical  power,  to  which  he  himself  made 
some  pretence.  Scott  disavowing  the  pos- 
session of  any  such  gift,  the  dwarf  signalled 
to  a  huge  black  cat,  which  thereupon 
jumped  up  and  perched  itself  on  a  shelf, 
looking,  to  the  excited  senses  of  the  visitors, 
as  if  it  were  verily  the  familiar  spirit  of 
the  place.  "He  has  poo'er;  ay,  he  has 
poo'er,"  repeated  the  grotesque  figure,  seat- 
119 


FOOTSTEPS      OF      SCOTT 

ing  himself  as  he  spoke,  and  grinning  hor- 
ribly as  if  enjoying  the  weird  impression 
he  had  made.  At  this  point,  Dr  Ferguson 
called  to  him  to  undo  the  door,  as  they 
must  now  be  going  ;  and  when  the  party 
were  once  more  in  the  open,  Scott  was  ob- 
served to  be  pale  as  ashes  and  agitated  in 
every  limb. 

A  being  so  odd,  and  circumstances  so 
uncanny,  were  not  to  be  soon  forgotten. 
Hence,  in  course  of  time,  we  have  "  Bowed 
Davie,"  as  he  was  called,  passing  into  the 
Waverley  gallery  as  Elshie  the  Recluse,  the 
Black  Dwarf  of  Mucklestane  Moor.  In  the 
16th  chapter  of  the  novel  the  interview  is 
reproduced  with  graphic  force.  Despite  his 
misanthropic  disposition,  it  should  be  said 
that  this  curious  creature  exhibited  a  quite 
rem.arkable  delight  in  the  beauties  of 
nature;  that  he  devoured  history  vrith 
avidity ;  and  had  grace  enough  to  appreci- 
ate the  great  epics.     He  died  in  1811,^  and 

^  The  Dwarf  was  born  at  Easter  Happrew,  in  the  parish  of 
Stobo,  in  1740.     See  Chambers's  Life  of  David  Ritchie. 

120 


FOOTPRINTS    OF    WAVER  LEY 

was  buried  in  Manor  Churchyard,  where 
the  brothers  Chambers,  the  pubhshers  (na- 
tives of  Peebles),  erected  a  stone  over  his 
remains.  Westburnfiat  is  borrowed  from 
Liddesdale.  Ellieslaw  Castle  is  thought  to 
be  drawn  from  Goldielands ;  according  to 
others,  from  Garvald,  in  East  Lothian.  An- 
naple,  the  christian  name  of  the  old  nurse 
at  Heughfoot,  was  taken  from  that  of  the 
Dwarf's  mother,  Annaple  Niven. 

On  the  last  day  of  1817  Rob  Roy  was  given 
to  the  world,  Constable  venturing  a  first  e- 
dition  of  10,000,  which  was  followed  within 
a  fortnight  by  a  further  impression  of  3000. 
A  note  to  Ballantyne  with  the  last  proof- 
sheets  recalls  the  circumstances  under 
which  the  novel  was  written: 

"With  great  joy 
I  send  you  Roy. 
'Twas  a  tough  job, 
But  we've  done  with  Rob." 

There  is  more  vmderthe  surface  of  this  than 
mere  playful  humour,  however,  for  Lock- 
hart  tells  us  in  what  shattered  state  of 
121 


FOOTSTEPS      OF      SCOTT 

health  Scottwas  at  the  time.  Onefearsthat, 
notwithstanding  the  "light  and  airy"  char- 
acter of  the  composition,  Rob  Roy  was  little 
short  of  being  task-work.  "'Tis  easy  for  you 
to  bid  me  get  on,"  the  author  said  to  Ballan- 
tyne,  dunning  him  for  copy,  "but  how  the 
deuce  can  I  make  Rob  Roy's  wdfe  speak 
with  such  a  curmurring  in  my  guts?"  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  it  was  this  year  which  saw 
the  beginning  of  Scott's  physical  decline, 
that  steady,  stealing  march  towards  the  ma- 
lady which  finally  carried  him  off,  though, 
happily,  not  for  fifteen  years  afterwards. 

A  line  drawn  on  the  map  from  Glasgow 
to  Stirling  and  across  to  Inversnaid,  thence 
by  Loch  Lomond  back  to  the  Clyde,  will 
give  us  the  Rob  Roy  Country,  a  triangle  of 
Scotland  on  which  the  best  of  Scott's  work 
had  already  put  its  impress.  The  North- 
umbrian portion  of  the  story  centres  round 
Osbaldistone  Hall,  probably  Biddlestone, 
near  Rothbury,  though  both  Chillingham 
and  Naworth  are  claimants.  Asa  character- 
isation of  Scottish  life  at  what  maybe  called 
122 


FOOTPRINTS    OF    WAVERLEY 

the  cateran  period,  Rob  Roy  takes  high  rank 
indeed.  The  contrast  betwixt  Scotsman 
and  Englishman,  and  Highlander  and  Low- 
lander,  has  a  better  portrayal  here  than  in 
any  other  of  the  Waverleys.  As  to  origin- 
als, Di  Vernon,  beautiful,  sprightly,  dash- 
ing, without  marrow  among  the  heroines 
of  Scott  in  her  own  class,  may  have  been 
drawn,  as  Basil  Hall  supposes,  from  Jane 
Anne  Cranstoun,  Countess  von  Purgstall, 
Scott's  early  confidante ;  or,  as  seems  more 
likely,  it  may  have  been  his  first  love  who 
sat  for  the  portrait.  The  irresponsible  Fair- 
service  typifies  the  ideal  serving-man  of 
the  period.  The  Bailie  is,  of  course,  the 
finest  of  the  male  characters.  He  is,  for  all 
time,  the  classic  figure  of  the  pawky  Low- 
land merchant — hard  but  honest,  natural 
and  simply  cynical,  but  kindly,  good- 
natured,  ever  humorous — as  true  a  being  of 
flesh  and  blood  as  ever  trod  the  "Saut  Mar- 
ket," in  the  words  of  Leslie  Stephen.  Frank 
Osbaldistone  is  an  ordinary,  easy-going 
Englishman.  Helen  MacGregor  is  not  an 
123 


FOOTSTEPS      OF      SCOTT 

over-attractive  personality,  yet  what  sub- 
limity there  is  in  the  reply  of  this  extraor- 
dinary woman  to  someone  who  called  her 
by  the  familiar  appellation  of  good  womanl 
"I'm  nae  good  woman — a'  the  country  kens 
I'm  bad  eneugh,  an'  may  be  sorry  eneugh 
that  I  am  nae  better ;  but  I  can  do  what 
good  women  canna  an'  darena  do!" 

With  the  next  of  the  Waverleys,  which 
appeared  in  June  1818,  Scott  touches  high- 
water  mark.  The  Heart  of  Midlothian  must 
certainly  be  placed  amongst  the  five  or  six 
of  the  series  that  stand  in  the  front  rank. 
Asa  picture  of  mid  eighteenth-century  Scot- 
tish life  it  is  unrivalled.  In  Edinburgh  its 
reception  was  such  as  Lockhart  "never  wit- 
nessed on  the  appearance  of  any  other  liter- 
ary no  velty,"and  the  admiration  and  delight 
were  unbounded  all  over  Scotland.  Walter 
Savage  Landor,  who  had  little  love  for 
Scott's  poetry,  says  of  this  novel  that  if  Scott 
had  written  nothing  else,  it  would  have 
stamped  him  the  most  illustrious  author  of 
the  age.  Its  charm  and  power  lie  in  the  path- 


FOOTPRINTS    OF    WAVERLEY 

etic  interest  of  the  story,  which  stirred  the 
sympathy  and  deep  respect  of  Scott's  read- 
ers more  than  anything  he  ever  wrote. 
Jeanie  Deans  is  far  and  away  the  sweetest 
and  best  of  his  heroines  of  humble  Kf  e,  and 
she  is  so  because  she  is  the  least  of  a  hero- 
ine. The  narrative  on  which  Scott  reared 
his  romance  was  obtained  from  a  Dum- 
fries lady,  Mrs  Goldie  of  Craigmuie.  Helen 
Walker,  Jeanie's  prototype,  tramped  all 
the  way  to  London,  and  with  the  assistance 
of  the  Duke  of  Argyll  saved  her  sister  Isa- 
bel ("Effie  Deans"),  lying  under  sentence  of 
death  for  infanticide,  having  previously  re- 
fused (though  the  official  record  does  not 
suggest  this)  to  preserve  the  other's  life  by 
giving  false  testimony.  Unlike  her  proto- 
type, however,  Helen  died  (in  her  eightieth 
year)  poor  and  unmarried,  without  any  of 
that  generous  provision  which  the  Duke  be- 
stowed upon  his  fictitious  protegee.  Mrs 
Goldie  planned  a  monument  to  her  memory, 
but  passed  away  before  this  could  be  set  up. 
Her  daughter  subsequently  requested  Scott 
125 


FOOTSTEPS      OF      SCOTT 

to  write  the  inscription,  and  offered  to  col- 
lect money  to  carry  out  her  mother's  wish. 
Sir  Walter  replied  that  he  would  do  it  all 
himself.  Accordingly,  a  handsome  table- 
stone  (not  a  "little  pillar,"  as  Lockhart  has 
it),  in  the  Covenanting  churchyard  of  Iron- 
gray,  carries  this  most  graceful  of  tributes  : 

THIS   STONE   WAS   ERKCTED 

BY   THE   AUTHOR   OF   WAVEllLEY 

TO   THE   MEMORY 

OF 

HELEN   WALKER, 

WHO   DIED   IN   THE   YEAR   OF   GOD   1791 

THIS   HUMBLE   INDIVIDUAL 

PRACTISED    IN   REAL   LIFE 

THE  VIRTUES 

WITH   WHICH   FICTION   HAS   INVESTED 

THE   IMAGINARY   CHARACTER   OF 

JEANIE   DEANS; 

REFUSING   THE   SLIGHTEST  DEPARTURE 

FROM   VERACITY, 

EVEN   TO   SAVE   THE   LIFE   OF   A   SISTER, 

SHE   NEVERTHELESS   SHOWED   HER 

KINDNESS   AND   FORTITUDE, 

IN   RESCUING   HER 

FROM   THE   SEVERITY   OF   THE   LAW, 

AT   THE   EXPENSE   OF   PERSONAL   EXERTIONS 

WHICH  THE  TIME  RENDERED  AS  DIFFICULT 

AS   THE   MOTIVE   WAS   LAUDABLE. 

RESPECT   THE   GRAVE   OF   POVERTY 

WHEN   COMBINED   WITH   LOVE   OF   TRUTH 

AND   DEAR   AFFECTION. 

126 


FOOTPRINTS    OF    WAVERLEY 

Though  many  of  the  incidents  in  The 
Heart  of  Midlothian  occur  in  widely-separa- 
ted locaKties,  Edinburgh,  as  the  title  shows, 
is  its  principal  arena.  It  is  peculiarly  Scott's 
story  of  his  "own  romantic  town."  No 
artist  lingers  more  lovingly  over  his  canvas 
than  Scott  over  his  Edinburgh  word-pic- 
tures. The  Grassmarket,  the  site  of  the 
Tolbooth,  Muschat's  Cairn — the  scene  of 
Jeanie's  and  Robertson's  midnight  meeting 
— St  Anthony's  Chapel  (a  mere  shell),  Salis- 
bury Crags,  in  the  neighbourhood  of  which 
lay  the  Deans's  homestead,  and  Arthur's 
Seat — "  a  lion  couchant" — all  these  were  the 
cherished  landmarks  of  Scott's  golden  days. 
There  is  no  finer  reverie  than  that  with 
which  the  eighth  chapter  opens ;  but  every 
chapter,  to  speak  truth,  affords  fresh  glimp- 
ses of  the  "  fascination  "  (the  word  used  by 
another  Sir  Walter  with  regard  to  London) 
by  which  the  whole  setting  of  the  city  and 
the  continuity  of  its  history  had  "  chained 
his  heart  for  evermair." 

Lockhart  considers  the  publication  of  this 
127 


FOOTSTEPS  OF  SCOTT 
novel  as  the  climax  of  Scott's  career.  But 
Ivanhoe  and  Kenilworth ;  The  Fortunes  of 
Nigel  and  Quentin  Durward;  as  well  as  Red- 
gauntlet,  were  still  to  be  written — a  noble 
quintette  !  Nevertheless,  just  at  this  time 
it  looked  as  if  the  romancer's  writing  days 
were  done.  For  several  months  during  1819 
Scott  lay  in  Castle  Street  at  death's  door — 
so  certain  of  his  end,  indeed,  that  on  one 
occasion  he  actually  took  farewell  of  his 
family,  and  Lockhart  parted  from  him 
"  with  dark  prognostications  "  that  it  was 
for  the  last  time.  But  his  characteristically 
vigorous  constitution  carried  him  through 
the  crisis,  though  his  hair  turned  snow- 
white,  and  he  was  never  quite  the  same 
man  again. 

What  have  been  termed  the  "  sick  man's 
romances  "  bring  us,  first  of  all,  to  the  Bor- 
der with  that  finest  of  tragic  tales.  The 
Bride  of  Lammerinoor,  whose  scenes  are  al- 
most entirely  laid  in  East  Lothian  and  the 
Merse.  The  story,  however,  turns  on  a  well- 
known  Wigtownshire  tradition,  connected 
128 


FOOTPRINTS  OF  WAVERLEY 
with  the  Stair  family, — Janet  Dalrymple, 
wife  of  David  Dunbar,  Younger  of  Bal- 
doon,  being  the  original  of  the  gentle  Lucy 
Ashton.i  The  Wolf's  Crag  is  the  fragment- 
ary Fast  Castle,  while  Eyemouth  is  the 
Wolf's  Hope,  the  scene  of  (Jaleb  Balder- 
stone's  raiding  exploits.  The  latter,  model- 
led from  Andrew  Davidson  of  Tyninghame, 
is  a  second  Fairservice.  "Haud  yer  tongue, 
for  heaven's  sake,  sir ;  if  it's  my  pleasure  to 
hazard  my  soul  in  telling  lees  for  the  hon- 


1  The  tradition  of  the  Bride  has  been  greatly  exaggerated. 
The  real  facts  seem  to  be  these :  Janet  Dalrymple  had 
pledged  her  troth  to  a  poor  noble,  Lord  Rutherford,  whose 
suit  was  resented  by  her  parents.  The  mother,  the  wife  of 
the  first  Lord  Stair,  the  original  of  Lady  Ashton  therefore,  a 
proud  woman  of  strong  will,  exerted  all  her  influence  to  break 
off  this  engagement,  and  succeeded.  Thereupon  Janet  married 
Dunbar,  August  12,  1669.  On  the  24th  of  that  month,  both 
bride  and  bridegroom  returned  to  Baldoon,  in  the  parish  of 
Kirkinner.  Shortly  afterwards,  the  bride's  health  declined 
and  gave  way,  and  she  died,  probably  of  a  broken  heart,  on 
September  12th  following.  There  is  not  the  faintest  allusion 
to  any  such  harrowing  catastrophe  as  that  supposed  in  the 
novel  to  have  occurred  on  the  night  of  the  marriage.  Dunbar, 
"a  cultivated  gentleman  of  unimpeached  honour,"  bore  no 
resemblance  to  "  Bucklaw."  He  again  married,  and  died  in 
1682.  The  marriage  contract  of  David  Dunbar  and  Janet 
Dalrymple  is  still  extant. 

129  9 


FOOTSTEPS      OF      SCOTT 

our  of  the  family,  it's  nae  business  o'  yours." 
Winton  House  is  thought  to  be  the  Ravens- 
wood  of  the  tragedy,  and  the  fine  old  kirk 
of  Pencaitland  may  easily  be  the  scene  of 
the  wedding  and  burial  of  the  ill-fated 
Bride. 

In  The  Legend  of  Montrose,  which  formed 
the  second  portion  of  the  third  series  of 
the  Tales  of  My  Landlord,  we  are  taken  to 
familiar  Highland  territory.  It  is  the  great 
Dugald  Dalgetty  of  Drumthwacket,  that 
most  conceited  of  wandering  Scots,  that 
dauntless  soldier  of  fortune,  who  really 
shines  in  the  story.  It  is  consequently  a 
story  of  a  single  man  only.  It  may  be  re- 
called that  Scott  got  the  name  as  a  boy  at 
Prestonpans. 

The  grand  old  English  romance  of  Ivan- 
hoe  appeared  in  December  1819,  "  in  the 
midst  of  accumulated  afflictions."  Scott 
was  then  in  the  gloom  of  solitude,  under 
a  deep  cloud  of  sorrow.  In  this  month, 
within  ten  days,  he  lost  his  mother,  an  uncle, 
and  an  aunt.  Ivanhoe  w^as  received  with 
130 


FOOTPRINTS  OF  WAVERLEY 
positive  rapture,  and  in  England  it  is  no 
exaggeration  to  say  that  it  was  welcomed 
as  a  national  triumph.  As  a  work  of  art,  it 
is  easily  the  first  of  all  Scott's  efforts.  Not 
so,  however,  from  the  standpoint  of  genius. 
Considered  thus,  it  is  a  long  way  behind 
the  first  three  of  the  Waverleys.  The  ori- 
ginal of  Rebecca  of  York,  it  is  not  gener- 
ally known,  was  Miss  Gratz,  a  Philadel- 
phian,  of  whose  beauty  and  tenderness,  and 
loyalty  to  her  ancient  faith,  Scott  heard 
from  Washington  Irving.  "How  do  you 
like  your  Rebecca  ?  Does  the  Rebecca  I 
have  pictured  compare  with  the  pattern 
given  ?  "  he  inquired  of  Irving,  in  sending 
him  a  copy  of  Ivanhoe. 

The  Monastery  (1820)  is  Scott's  solitary 
romance  of  the  Melrose  district.  One  feels 
that  he  missed  his  chance.  Abundant 
material  lay  to  his  hand,  had  he  cared — 
better  themes  than  the  Romish  Church  at 
her  last  gasp.  In  The  Lay,  Melrose  comes 
to  its  own,  to  be  sure;  yet  the  opportunity 
for  a  really  great  and  artistic  presentation 
331 


FOOTSTEPS  OF  SCOTT 
of  its  finer  features  and  traditions  was  lost 
altogether.  In  Saint  Mary's  of  Kennaquhair 
we  have  the  venerable  religious  house,  a- 
mongst  whose  ruins  the  laird  of  Abbots- 
ford  spent  many  happy  hours.  Glendearg 
(formerly  Hillslap)  and  Colmslie,  with  a 
third  tower,  Langshaw,  are  at  the  head  of 
the  Water  of  Elwyn,  and  near  its  junction 
with  the  Tweed  is  the  Fairy  or  Nameless 
Dean — Corri-nan-shian — the  resort  of  that 
most  ridiculous  personage,  the  White  Lady. 
Darnick  comes  into  the  story,  and  at 
Bridgend,  close  by,  is  the  scene  of  the  sous- 
ing of  the  sacristan.  Father  Philip.  Castle 
Avenel  may  be  Lochside,  at  Yetholm,  or 
Sandyknowe  itself.  Clinthill  is  in  Mer- 
toun  parish.  The  surnames  of  Happer, 
Glendinning,  Brydone,  and  Tackit  are  still 
common  to  the  localities  of  the  novel.  Cap- 
tain Clutterbuck,  who  is  made  to  intro- 
duce The  Monastery,  was,  according  to  Ro- 
bert Chambers  (though  Scott  denies  it), 
Adam  Ormiston,  a  Melrose  "  worthy,"  who 
really  did  know  a  good  deal  about  the  Ab- 
132 


FOOTPRINTS    OF    WAVERLEY 

bey.  Mine  host  of  the  George,  in  the  open- 
ing narrative,  was  David  Kyle,  and  Cap- 
tain Doolittle  was  Walter  Tait  of  the  Roy- 
al Marines,  a  one-legged  hero  who  died  in 
1836. 

The  Abbot,  suggested  to  Scott  during  a 
visit  to  Blair-Adam,  appeared  as  a  sequel 
to  The  Monastery  in  September  1820,  and 
fared  better  with  the  public,  who,  be  it 
said,  were  not  welcoming  the  novels  after 
Ivanhoe  with  the  same  enthusiastic  de- 
light. Kinross  and  Loch  Leven  are  its 
chief  scenes,  and  it  has  Queen  Mary  for  its 
principal  figure.  "  They  may  say  what  they 
will — many  a  true  heart  will  be  sad  for 
Mary  Stuart,  e'en  if  all  be  true  men  say  of 
her."  These  words,  which  Scott  puts  into 
the  mouth  of  one  of  his  characters,  well  ex- 
press his  own  feelings  and  those  of  many  a 
man  and  woman  since  his  day.  Kenilworth, 
a  romance  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  followed  in 
January.  It  was  one  of  the  most  success- 
ful of  all  at  the  time  of  publication,  and 
must  continue  to  keep  its  place  in  the  high- 
133 


FOOTSTEPS      OF      SCOTT 

est  rank  of  prose  fiction.  Nor,  with  the  one 
exception  of  The  Bride  of  Laininer7noor,has 
Scott  bequeathed  us  a  deeper  and  more 
affecting  tragedy  than  that  of  Amy  Hob- 
sart.  The  next  of  the  series,  The  Pirate, 
was  published  in  the  beginning  of  Decem- 
ber 1821.  When  with  the  Lighthouse  Com- 
missioners, immediately  after  the  publi- 
cation of  Waverley,  Scott  had  gone  over 
practically  the  whole  ground  covered  by 
the  romance — the  Mainland  of  Shetland. 
He  had  climbed  Sumburgh  Head,  where 
Mertoun  rescues  Cleveland,  cast  on  the 
beach.  He  had  visited  Mousa  Castle,  from 
which  he  drew  the  picture  of  Noma's  eyrie, 
where  she  compounded  the  charm  to  cure 
Minna's  heartache.  He  had  inspected  the 
Stones  of  Hoy  and  Stennis,  where  the  Pirate 
makes  his  farewell  to  Minna.  There  is,  in- 
deed, not  one  of  the  novels  in  which  the 
locality  and  its  life  have  been  so  faithfully 
limned.  Minna  and  Brenda  Troil  had 
for  their  prototypes  the  two  winsome 
daughters,  blonde  and  brune,  of  Scott  of 
134 


FOOTPRINTS    OF    WAVERLEY 

Deloraine,  in  Ettrick.^  The  Fortunes  of  Nigel 
— a  London-Scottish  romance,  the  most 
vivacious  of  the  Waverleys ;  Peveril  of  the 
Peak,  dull,  since  "smelling  of  the  apo- 
plexy " ;  Quentin  Du7'ward,  a  distinctly 
noble  contribution  to  the  historical  novel, 
and  the  best  in  construction  of  the  whole 
series,  were  each  bargained  for  and  "billed" 
ere  a  line  was  written.  So  were  St  Ronans 
Well  and  Redgauntlet.  The  first  three 
transport  us  furth  of  Scotland  and  to 
mediaeval  times.  With  the  last  two  we  are 
at  home  and  in  the  modern  world.  It  is 
curious  to  note  about  Nigel  that  all  its 
chief  characters  from  the  King  to  the  hero's 
servant  are  Scots.  James,  and  Richie  Moni- 
plies,  are  the  figures  that  attract  us  most, 
though  we  should  perhaps  add  that  of 
George  Heriot — "Jingling  Geordie."  Dal- 
garno  makes  a  poor  enough  show.  So  does 
Sir  Mungo  Malagrowther,  believed  to  be 

^  The  claim  is  also  made,  not  without  reason,  for  the  two 
daughters  of  Roy  of  Nenthorn,  nea^  Kelso,  at  whose  house 
Scott  used  to  visit ;  and  also  for  the  nieces  of  Morritt  of 
Rokeby. 

135 


FOOTSTEPS      OF      SCOTT 

drawn  from  Kirkpatrick  Sharpe.  John 
Christie  and  his  frail  spouse  are  sketched 
to  the  Ufe.  Topographically,  Scott's  Lon- 
don is  singularly  correct,  though  Hyde 
Park  is  made  to  exist  half  a  century  before 
its  time. 

Quentin  Durward,  a  huge  Continental 
success,  was  the  first  book  by  Scott  in  which 
the  scene  is  laid  out  of  the  British  Isles. 
To  Skene  he  was  indebted  for  most  of  his 
local  colour,  but  there  are  incidents  and 
reminiscences  which  savour  of  Scotland  and 
the  writer's  own  experiences.  St  Ronaiis 
Well  is  the  Wizard's  one  story  of  con- 
temporary social  life,  and  far  from  bril- 
liant. As  Scott,  Laidlaw,  and  Lockhar t  were 
riding  along  the  brow  of  the  Eildons,  Scott 
mentioned  the  "  row  "  that  was  going  on  in 
Paris  about  Quentin  Durward.  "I  can't 
but  think  I  could  make  better  play  still 
with  something  German,"  he  said.  Laidlaw 
mildly  protested.  "  You  are,"  he  said,  "  al- 
ways best,  like  Helen  MacGregor,  when 
your  foot  is  on  your  native  heath ;  and  I 
136 


FOOTPRINTS  OF  W  A  V  E  11  L  E  Y 
have  often  thought  that  if  you  were  to  write 
a  novel  and  lay  the  scene  here  in  the  very 
year  you  were  writing  it,  you  would  exceed 
yourself."  "Hame's  hame,"  quoth  Scott, 
smiling,  "  be  it  ever  sae  hamely";  and  Laid- 
law  bade  him  "  stick  to  Melrose  in  1823." 
Alas,  however,  the  scene  w^as  not  Melrose ! 
Would  it  had  been !  Strange  that  again  the 
chance  escaped  him.  The  conversation 
doubtless  suggested  St  Ronans  PFeZZ,  the  lo- 
cale of  which  Innerleithen  claims  for  itself, 
though  much  of  the  scenery  was  probably 
drawn  from  Gilsland.  Marchthorn  may  be 
Peebles  (the  Earl  of  March,  now  Wemyss, 
being  one  of  its  chief  landowners) ;  and  here 
dwelt  Miss  Ritchie,  the  true  original  of  Meg 
Dods,  the  termagant  landlady  of  the  Cleik- 
um  Inn,  which  is  still  in  existence.  Shaw's 
Castle  may  be  Traquair  House,  but  the 
name  is  suggestive  of  Gilsland.  Dr  Duncan 
of  Smailholm  stood,  so  Lockhart  says,  for 
the  absent-minded  Josiah  Cargill;  but  Dr 
Lawson  of  Selkirk  is  a  no  less  likely  original. 
When  Redgauntlet  came,  it  proved  an 
137 


FOOTSTEPS      OF      SCOTT 

excellent  foil  to  St  Ronans  Well.  But  it 
was  destined  to  be  the  last  of  the  front- 
rank  romances.  Historically,  in  its  Jacob- 
ite temper,  it  may  be  said  to  stand  next  to 
Waverley — is  pendent  to  it,  indeed.  The 
scene  of  action  is  confined  to  Edinburgh 
and  the  Solway  shores,  where,  however,  no 
actual  rising  on  behalf  of  Charles  Edward 
ever  took  shape.  Redgauntlet  Castle  is,  no 
doubt,designed  from  Hoddom  Castle,  which, 
from  its  situation  in  Cummertrees  parish, 
suggests  at  once  the  papistical  laird  of 
Summer  trees — "  Pate-in-Peril."  His  rather 
risky  adventure  at  the  Devil's  Beef  Tub 
evidences  Scott's  familiarity  with  the  old 
coach-road  between  the  Crook  and  Moffat. 
Joshua  and  Rachel  Geddes  (Ruskin's  per- 
fect type  of  womanhood)  were  borrowed 
ftom  what  Scott  saw,  in  his  Kelso  boyhood, 
of  the  Waldies.  Darsie  Latimer  is  Scott's 
friend  Will  Clerk ;  and  the  Fairf ords  are,  of 
course,  Walter  Scott  phre  et  fils.  Lockhart 
is  surely  wrong  in  seeing  in  the  faithful 
Purdie  a  prototype  of  the  villainous  Cristal 
138 


FOOTPRINTS    OF    WAVERLEY 

Nixon.  Nanty  Ewart,  the  scholarly  smug- 
gler, looks  like  a  model  of  Paul  Jones.  The 
terrible  Sir  Robert  Redgauntlet,  in  that 
masterpiece,  "Wandering  Willie's  Tale," 
the  finest  short  story  in  the  English  lan- 
guage, is  Grierson  of  Lag  with  a  snatch  of 
Claverhouse.  For  Wandering  Willie  there 
is  no  suggested  original,  but  it  is  in  Dun- 
score  old  churchyard  (where  Lag  lies)  that 
his  weird  narration  has  its  finis.  Among 
the  novels  of  Scott,  Redgauntlet  will  always 
be  reckoned  one  of  the  dearest,  especially 
to  those  who  love  to  trace,  through  his 
fiction,  the  hand  as  well  as  the  spirit  of  the 
Master.  It  is  the  memory  of  his  first  love, 
first  friendship,  filial  affection,  and  first  ex- 
perience of  the  world,  that  lights  up  so  much 
of  the  book.  Whether  it  be  considered  as 
a  story,  which  for  variety  and  excellence 
of  character  has  never  been  excelled,  as  Mr 
Lang  thinks,  save  by  Shakespeare,  or  taken 
as  a  piece  of  splendidly  interesting  intro- 
spective, its  niche  in  the  temple  of  Waver- 
ley  is  for  ever  secure. 
139 


FOOTSTEPS      OF      SCOTT 

The  remainder  of  the  Waverleys  take  us 
to  far  fields.  In  1825  appeared  TheBetrothed^ 
a  Welsh  story — not  a  success.  See  the  In- 
troduction for  an  interesting  legend  as  to 
the  origin  of  the  Peeblesshire  Tweedies.  The 
Talisman  (1825),  a  tale  of  the  Third  Cru- 
sade, derives  its  title  from  the  famous  Lee 
Penny  obtained  in  the  Holy  Land  by  Lock- 
hart  of  Lee,  in  Lanarkshire.  The  amulet  is 
still  preserved — a  treasured  family  heir- 
loom. 

We  are  now  at  the  dark  year  of  Scott's 
life,  with  ruin,  and  the  supreme  sorrow,  of 
which  the  critics  have  made  too  little,  and 
the  loss  of  "  dear  39,"  following  each  other 
in  swift,  pathetic  succession.  Then  what 
seemed  to  be  the  beginning  of  the  end 
itself.  It  was  on  January  17,  1826,  that 
Skene,  calling  at  Castle  Street,  found  Scott 
addressing  him:  "My  friend,  give  me  a 
shake  of  your  hand — mine  is  that  of  a  beg- 
gar. Constable  has  failed,  and  I  am  ruined 
de  fond  en  comhle.  It's  a  hard  blow,  but  I 
must  just  bear  up ;  the  only  thing  which 
140 


FOOTPRINTS  OF  WAVERLEY 
wrings  me  is  poor  Charlotte  and  the  bairns." 
On  May  14,  "  poor  Charlotte "  had  passed 
"  beyond  these  voices."  There  were  "  omin- 
ous reminders,"  too,  that  all  was  not  right 
with  his  own  health.  Yet  were  there  her- 
culean tasks  ahead!  And  how  heroically 
were  they  wrestled  with  to  the  overcom- 
ing! Woodstock  won  him  a  round  £8000, 
the  Life  of  Napoleon  brought  grist  to  the 
mill  to  the  extent  of  £18,000.  By  and  by  we 
see  him  planning  the  Tales  of  a  Grand- 
father, which  one  fears  the  children  of  Scot- 
land are  in  danger  of  forgetting ;  and  The 
Chronicles  of  the  Canongate,  a  set  of  stories 
from  the  hypothetical  pen  of  Chrystal 
Croftangry,  "a  reduced  gentleman,"  like 
Caleb  Balderstone,  who  had  run  through  a 
fortune,  and  lived  his  last  days  near  by  the 
Canongate  in  comfortable  proximity  to  the 
Holyrood  Sanctuary.  In  the  person  of 
Croftangry,  Scott  gives  his  readers  a  some- 
ways  portrait  of  himself.  Of  the  Tales, 
there  is  The  Highland  Widow,  a  tragedy  of 
the  Awe,  inspired  by  Mrs  Bethune  Baliol, 
141 


FOOTSTEPS  OF  SCOTT 
drawn  from  Scott's  friend  Mrs  Murray- 
Keith;  The  Two  Drovers,  a  dirking  catas- 
trophe which  takes  place  in  Cumberland ; 
and  The  Surgeons  Daughte?-,  whose  scenes 
are  laid  first  at  Selkirk,  the  Middlemas  of 
the  story,  and  afterwards  in  India.  Dr  Gid- 
eon Gray  is  either  Mungo  Park,  or  Ebene- 
zer  Clarkson,  Scott's  own  chirurgeon. 

Of  three  other  short  contes  from  The 
Keepsake{1829), My  Aunt  Margaret's  Mirror, 
a  Flanders  episode,  is  the  best ;  Death  of  the 
Laird's  Jock  embodies  a  legend  of  Liddes- 
dale ;  and  The  Tapestried  Chamber  is  a  con- 
ventional West  of  England  ghost  story. 

Among  the  final  considerable  Waverleys 
was  The  Fair  Maid  of  Perth;  or,  St  Valen- 
tines Day,  in  which  for  the  last  time  we  are 
taken  to  the  Highlands  and  the  "murmur- 
ing banks  of  Tay."  Interest  centres  chiefly 
in  the  historic  combat  on  the  North  Inch 
and  the  stupendous  heroism  of  Hal  o'  the 
Wynd.  The  Fair  Maid's  House  is  still  one 
of  the  "  lions  "  of  the  ancient  Scottish  Cap- 
ital. Following  Anne  of  Geier stein,  a  sort  of 
142 


FOOTPRINTS    OF    WAVER LEY 

sequel  to  Quentin  Duricard,  and  Count 
Robert  of  Paris,  a  tale  of  Byzantine  history, 
Castle  Dangerous  brings  the  brilliant  pro- 
cession to  a  close.  With  characteristic  bra- 
vado, we  have  Scott  accompanied  hj  Lock- 
hart  setting  out  in  July  for  Douglasdale, 
the  scene  of  the  new  romance.  Past  all 
the  old  landmarks,  every  one  of  them 
precious  to  his  memory,  we  see  them  driv- 
ing, as  Scott  well  knew,  for  the  last  time. 
They  ascended  the  Tweed,  by  Yair,  Ashe- 
stiel,  Elibank,  Innerleithen,  and  Peebles,  as 
far  as  the  town  of  Biggar.  When  near  Dro- 
chil,  a  Douglas  holding,  and  somewhat  off 
the  main  track,  Scott  could  scarcely  be  con- 
strained from  making  an  effort  to  reach  it. 
At  Douglas  he  inspected  the  old  Castle,  St 
Bride's  Kirk,  and  the  very  extraordinary 
monuments  of  the  most  heroic  and  power- 
ful family  in  the  annals  of  Scotland— now 
the  savers,  now  the  betrayers  of  their 
country. 

The  meeting  (too  joyous,  one  fears)  with 
an  old  friend,  Eliott  Lockhart  of  Cleghorn 
143 


FOOTSTEPS  OF  SCOTT 
and  Borthwickbrae  (long  M.P.  for  Selkirk- 
shire), had  disastrous  effects  for  the  latter, 
himself  a  paralytic.  "When  they  met,"  says 
Lockhart,  "  each  saw  his  own  case  glassed 
in  the  other,  and  neither  of  their  manly 
hearts  could  well  contain  itself  as  they  em- 
braced. Each  exerted  himself  to  the  utmost, 
indeed  far  too  much,  and  they  were  both 
tempted  to  transgress  the  laws  of  their  phy- 
sician." The  result  was  a  fresh  shock  to  the 
older  invalid,  w^ho  now  lay  stricken  and 
despaired  of.  "  This  is  a  sad  warning,"  said 
Scott,  when  the  news  came  to  him.  "I  must 
home  to  work  while  it  is  called  to-day ;  for 
the  night  cometh  when  no  man  can  work. 
I  put  that  text  many  a  year  ago  on  my  dial- 
stone  ;  but  it  often  preached  in  vain."  Alas, 
even  then  the  shadows  were  thickening  a- 
round  him !  The  tired  pen  was  to  do  little 
more.  A  few  months  and  its  "work"  would 
be  over !  Of  confessions  by  men  of  letters, 
has  there  ever  been  any  more  stately,  more 
noble,  than  this  that  fell  from  the  lips  of 
the  "  Author  of  Waverley " ?  "I  am  draw- 
144 


FOOTPRINTS  OF  WAVERLEY 
ing  near  to  the  close  of  my  career ;  I  am  fast 
shuffling  off  the  stage.  I  have  been,  perhaps, 
the  most  voluminous  author  of  the  day : 
and  it  is  a  comfort  to  me  to  think  that  I 
have  tried  to  unsettle  no  man's  faith,  to 
corrupt  no  man's  principle,  and  that  I  have 
Yirritten  nothing  which  on  my  death-bed  I 
should  wish  blotted." 


10 


CHAPTER  VI 

"FAIR  MELROSE" 

LOCKHART  has  an  attractive  and  homely 
picture  of  the  walk  which  Scott  and  Moore 
took  together  from  Abbotsf ord  to  Melrose. 
On  the  way,  they  called  on  Laidlaw  at  Kae- 
side,  and  on  the  Fergusons  at  Huntlyburn, 
visits  which  greatly  charmed  the  author 
of  Lalla  Rookh.  At  Melrose,  Scott  ex- 
plained to  his  companion  "  all  the  parts  of 
the  ruin,"  and  had  his  usual  banter  with 
the  custodian,  Johnny  Bower.  Sir  Walter's 
love  for  Melrose  and  its  Abbey  is  known 
to  all  readers  of  the  Life.  The  place  is  at  the 
very  heart  of  the  Scott  homeland.  No  part 
of  the  Border  is  better  known,  not  only  in 
Scotland  itself,  but  in  far  fields,  and  wher- 
ever the  English  language  is  spoken.  The 
situation  of  Melrose  (anciently  Fordel),  in 
the  long,  hill-girt  hollow  through  which 
146 


"FAIR      MELROSE" 

runs  the  Tweed  in  pleasant  babble,  and 
under  the  shadow  of  the  "  Eildons,  one  yet 
three,"  has  much  to  commend  it.  Topo- 
graphically, Melrose  may  easily  have  be- 
come a  popular  resort,  apart  from  its  liter- 
ary and  romantic  associations.  But  Scott  is 
the  true  maker  of  the  modern  Melrose.  It 
was  the  writing  of  The  Lay  and  The  Monas- 
tery, together  with  the  warm,  personal  ele- 
ment furnished  by  the  near  neighbourhood 
of  Abbotsford,  which  laid  the  foundation 
whereon  Melrose  has  reared  its  fortunes. 
The  town  flourishes  on  the  genius  of  Scott. 
A  century  ago  it  was  obscure  enough,  de- 
spite its  possession  of  what  Lockhart  has 
styled  "the  most  graceful  and  picturesque 
monastic  ruin  in  Scotland."  In  1801  the 
population  was  between  four  and  five  hun- 
dred. At  the  time  of  Scott's  death,  its 
inhabitants  numbered  six  hundred  and 
eighty-nine.  Twenty  years  later  they  were 
still  less  than  a  thousand;  now  they  are 
about  two  thousand.  When  Scott  began  to 
build  Abbotsford,  slated  houses  were  un- 
147 


FOOTSTEPS  OF  SCOTT 
known  in  Melrose.  The  parish  church  was 
part  of  the  Abbey  nave,  and  the  St  John's 
Lodge  of  Freemasons  (the  oldest  in  Scot- 
land) occupied  the  only  other  public  build- 
ing in  the  place. 

Melrose  dates  its  expansion  and  its  pro- 
sperity almost  entirely  from  the  era  of 
Scott.  It  has  become  a  sort  of  Borderland 
Mecca,  where  homage  is  paid  fromallpoints 
of  the  compass  to  one  who  was  "  the  whole 
world's  darling."  No  town,  with  the  ex- 
ceptions of  Stratford-on-Avon  and  Ayr,  has 
been  dowered  with  such  wealth  of  literary 
traditions ;  and  no  ruin,  unless  it  be  "  Allo- 
way's  auld  haunted  kirk,"  has  been  so  en- 
shrined in  the  poetical  annals  of  the  nation 
as  Melrose  Abbey  has.  The  Lay  is  the  in- 
separable and  imperishable  memory  of  Mel- 
rose. It  is  not  the  busy,  useful  life  of  that 
early  Cistercian  colony  which  one  thinks 
of  in  the  sunny,  grass-grown  nave  of  Mel- 
rose ;  nor  is  it  a  remembrance  of  the  dead 
who  have  "  given  their  bodies  to  this  holy 
Abbey  to  keep " ;  neither  is  it  sorrow  for 
148 


"FAIR      MELROSE" 

the  fire  and  sword  from  over  the  Border. 
One  thinks  rather  of  William  of  Deloraine 
— the  monk — the  open  tomb  of  the  wizard 
— the  bewitching  effect  of  the  "  pale  moon- 
light," as  pictured  so  exquisitely  in  the 
second  canto.  It  is  difficult  to  imagine  Mel- 
rose without  the  influence  of  Scott.  The 
revival  of  a  taste  for  Gothic  architecture 
in  the  early  part  of  last  century  did  much, 
doubtless,  to  foster  interest  in  the  ruin,  yet 
how  little  and  how  feeble  was  it  all  in  com- 
parison with  the  universal  attention  which 
the  Wizard  of  Tweedside  has  attracted  to 
the  pile!  The  tourist  inundations  which 
Melrose  witnesses  summer  after  summer 
care  little  for  the  Abbey  as  such.  It  is  the 
magnetism  of  The  Lay  that  makes  all  the 
difference. 

This,  however,  was  not  Scott's  sole  boon 
to  Melrose — to  repeople  it  with  the  super- 
sensible and  the  awesome.  How  lovingly 
did  he  care  for  the  picturesque  pile  and 
watch  over  it!  How  did  he  plan  and  plead 
on  its  behalf !  Take,  for  instance,  the  f  oUow- 
149 


FOOTSTEPS      OF      SCOTT 

ing  paragraph  from  the  Life :  "  About  this 
time  [1822]  Scott's  thoughts  were  much 
occupied  with  a  plan  for  securing  Melrose 
Abbey  against  the  progress  of  decay,  which 
had  been  making  itself  manifest  to  an  a- 
larming  extent,  and  to  which  he  had  often 
before  directed  the  attention  of  the  Buc- 
cleuch  family.  Even  in  writing  to  persons 
who  had  never  seen  Melrose,  he  could  not 
keep  from  touching  on  this  business,  for  he 
wrote,  as  he  spoke,  out  of  the  fulness  of  his 
heart.  The  young  Duke  readily  concurred 
with  his  guardian  in  allowing  the  poet  to 
direct  such  repairs  as  might  seem  to  him 
adequate,  and  the  result  was  extremely 
satisfactory  to  all  the  habitual  worshippers 
of  those  classical  ruins." 

What  the  fabric  owes  to  Scott  is  not  suf- 
ficiently known.  Only  for  him,  one  fears 
that  the  structure  might  have  been  in  very 
different  circumstances  from  what  it  is. 
Even  yet  does  it  merit  the  most  anxious 
attention  (this  maybe  said  of  all  the  Border 
Abbeys) ;  but  the  fact  that  the  owner  of 
150 


"FAIR     MELROSE" 

Melrose  is  still  a  Duke  of  Buccleuch  is  as- 
surance enough  that  its  safety  and  amenity 
are  in  good  hands. 

Melrose,  like  its  sister  fanes,  owes  its 
establishment  to  David,  the  "  Sair  Sanct." 
The  name  was  borrowed  from  that  earlier 
Columban  house,  two  miles  further  down 
the  Tweed,  opposite  Bemersyde,  and  not 
far  from  Dryburgh,  the  site  of  which  is  now 
known  as  Old  Melrose  (from  Maol-ros,  the 
open  or  naked  headland).  Colonised  by 
monks  from  Lindisfarne,  it  was  at  the 
height  of  its  glory  under  the  priorship  of 
Cuthbert,  ^vho  was  himself  a  native  of  the 
locality.  Falling  on  evil  times  towards  the 
end  of  the  ninth  century,  it  gradually  lost 
prestige,  and  became  finally  extinct  as  the 
new  Melrose  rose  in  renown. 

The  history  of  Melrose  is  virtually  that 
of  each  of  those  other  splendid  homes  of 
piety  whose  remains,  sad  in  their  shattered 
beauty,  still  grace  the  banks  of  the  Tweed 
and  the  Jed.^    A  period  of  little  more  than 

^  Chronologically,  Jedburgh,  founded  in  1118,  is  the  old- 

151 


FOOTSTEPS  OF  SCOTT 
four  hundred  years  covers  their  entire  Kfe, 
notwithstanding  the  rare  devotion  and  the 
princely  benefactions  lavished  upon  them. 
They  came  through  much  tribulation  dur- 
ing the  War  of  Independence,  Melrose  being 
totally  destroyed  then,  and  rebuilt  by  the 
munificence  of  Robert  the  Bruce.  They 
were  burned  and  pillaged  by  the  "auld 
enemy"  in  1523,  and  again  at  other  times; 
and  it  was  reserved  for  Hertford  and  his 
underlings,  agents  of  the  most  despicable 
of  English  monarchs  —  Henry  VIII. —  to 
complete,  in  1544-5,  the  work  of  demolition. 
The  ruins  stand  pretty  much  as  their  last 
desecrators  left  them.  There  is  no  need  to 
rail  at  the  Reformers  or  at  Cromwell  for 
supposed  acts  of  spoliation.  They  were 
saved  the  work,  if  they  had  had  the  will  to 
do  it.  All  that  was  done  fifteen  years  before 

est.  Kelso  comes  next,  some  ten  years  later.  Melrose  dates 
from  1136,  and  Dryburgh  was  not  begun  until  1150.  The 
first  three  are  in  Roxburghshire  ;  the  last  stands  in  a  corner 
of  Berwickshire,  bounded  by  the  "chiming  Tweed."  It 
should  be  stated  that  Hugh  de  Morville,  Lord  of  Lauderdale 
and  Constable  of  Scotland,  had  a  considerable  share  in  the 
founding  of  Dryburgh. 

152 


JEDBURGH   ABBEY 

From  a  water-colour  drazving  by 
TOM  SCOTT,   R.S.A. 


"A  thousand  and  a  hundyre  yhere. 
And  awchtene  to  rekyne  clere, 
Gedward  and  Kelsowe  Abbayis  twa 
Or  Davy  was  King  he  founded  tha." 

'■  The  sacred  tapers'  lights  are  gone. 
Grey  moss  has  clad  the  altar  stone, 
The-holy  image  is  o'erthrown. 

The  bell  has  ceased  to  toll; 
The  long  ribb'd  aisles  are  burst  and  shrunk, 
The  holy  shrines  to  ruin  sunk. 
Departed  is  the  pious  monk — 
God's  blessing  on  his  sotill" 

SCOTT. 


"FAIR      MELROSE^ 

the  Reformation,  and  fifty-four  years  be- 
fore Cromwell  was  born.  Only  one  healing 
influence  has  been  at  work  since  those  Sep- 
tember days  which  first  saw  them  reduc- 
ed from  the  perfection  of  symmetry  and 
beauty  to  blackened  walls.  Time  has  dealt 
softly  and  gently  with  them,  as  the  rich 
carving  at  Melrose  abundantly  shows;  dot- 
ting them  with  the  growths  that  cling  to 
ancient  ruins,  and  over  all  throwing  the 
tender  pathos  of  decay. 

That  Melrose  should  have  fired  the  imagi- 
nation of  Scott  was  inevitable.  No  one 
knew  the  ruin  so  intimately.  Next  to  Ab- 
botsf ord,  Melrose  was  his  favourite  haunt. 
Here  he  brought  most  of  his  visitors.  And 
happy  they  who  had  Scott  for  cicerone! 
"  He'll  come  here  sometimes,"  said  old  Bow- 
er, "with  great  folks  in  his  company,  and 
the  first  I'll  know  of  it  is  hearing  his  voice 
calling  out,' Johnny! — Johnny  Bower!'  and 
when  I  go  out,  I'm  sure  to  be  greeted  with 
a  joke  or  a  pleasant  word.  He'll  stand  and 
crack  and  laugh  wi'  me  just  like  an  auld 
153 


FOOTSTEPS  OF  SCOTT 
wife — and  to  think  that  of  a  man  that  has 
such  an  awfu'  knowledge  o'  history!"  Lock- 
hart  saw  the  ruin  for  the  first  time  in  1818, 
and  was  charmed  with  Scott's  descriptions, 
both  of  Melrose  and  Dryburgh.  An  in- 
quiry as  to  the  revenue  of  the  former  at 
its  heyday,  drew  from  Scott  the  answer 
that  he  calculated  it  could  hardly  be  less 
than  £100,000  yearly.  Little  wonder  he 
makes  Captain  Clutterbuck  say  of  those 
old  Cistercians  that  they  "had  an  easy  life 
of  it"!    He  was  not  unmindful,  mayhap,  of 

the  taunt : 

"  The  monks  of  Melrose  made  fat  kail 
On  Fridays  vvlien  they  fasted; 
Nor  wanted  they  gude  beef  and  ale, 
So  lang's  their  neighbours'  lasted." 
Melrose  Abbey  has  been  so  often  described 
that  minute  details  are  unnecessary,  even 
if  space  availed  for  such  details.  The  fabric, 
as  with  Abbotsf  ord,  must  be  seen  to  be  un- 
derstood by  those  who  revel  in  grand  archi- 
tectural designs  and  rich  fanciful  decora- 
tions.   Like  all  ancient  churches  it  is  cruci- 
form, in  this  instance  a  Latin  cross.     From 
154 


"FAIR     MELROSE" 

the  centre  rises  a  square  tower,  eighty-four 
feet  high,  of  which  only  the  west  side  re- 
mains, resting  on  a  lofty  pointed  arch 
whose  summit  terminated  in  a  stone  balus- 
trade with  quatrefoil  rails,  under  which 
appears  in  bas-relief  a  frieze  of  roses.^  The 
west  end  of  the  nave  has  entirely  disappear- 
ed, so  that  the  length  of  that  portion  of  the 
building  cannot  be  ascertained.  From  the 
extremity  of  the  existing  edifice  to  the  end 
of  the  chancel  the  measurement  is  258  feet, 
the  length  of  the  transept  130  feet,  and  the 
breadth  of  the  nave  79  feet  within  the  walls. 
The  most  complete  parts  of  the  ruin  are 
the  south  transept  door  and  window,  both 
in  the  finest  style  of  the  Decorated  period, 
the  window,  indeed,  being  one  of  the  most 
beautiful  in  Britain.  The  north  transept 
is  roofless.  One  of  its  windows  represents 
a  Crown  of  Thorns.    On  the  west  side,  in 

^  The  rose  is  everywhere  in  evidence.  It  was  the  Abbots' 
favourite  flower,  and  held  to  be  emblematic  of  the  locality. 
Figures  of  a  mason's  mallet  (Scottice,  a  mell)  and  a  rose  are  fre- 
quent. The  rebus  is  incorporated  into  the  arms  of  the  burgh. 
See  the  Mercat-Cross,  and  several  of  the  public  buildings. 

155 


FOOTSTEPS      OF      SCOTT 

two  elevated  niches,  are  statues  of  the 
Apostles  Peter  and  Paul.  Beneath  is  a 
door  of  Saxon  architecture  leading  into  a 
low  vaulted  apartment — the  Sacristy  pro- 
bably, but  traditionally  known  as  the  Wax 
Cellar.  A  small  door  on  the  west  side  of  the 
south  transept,  which  displays  a  portion  of 
the  original  ribbed  and  groined  roof,  opens 
to  a  staircase  winding  to  the  top  by  seventy- 
four  steps,  and  leading  to  galleries  which 
doubtless  communicated  with  all  parts  of 
the  building.  Above  this  door  is  a  carved 
shield  with  compasses  and  jfleurs-de-lys, 
and  the  legend,  now  indecipherable, 

^a  gagsi  gc  cumpajs  cbgn  about 
^a  trottti)  anb  lautc  iio  but  buitc 
^cl)alti  to  ge  Ijenbe  q.  goljnc  JHororo.^ 

Who  this  Morow  was,  and  what  was  his 

connection  with  Melrose,  is  seen  from  the 

inscription  upon  another  tablet  a  little  to 

^  Some  words  are  apparently  missing.  The  idea  is  that  as 
the  compass  goes  round  with  a  uniform  exactness,  so  is  it 
with  Truth.  The  remainder  of  the  inscription  is  not  unlikely 
to  be  an  expression  of  praise  {lautc)  for  the  termination  of  the 
work  carried  out  under  the  superintendence  of  Morow,  who 
was  a  medieval  architect  of  note,  and  a  Frenchman. 

156 


"FAIR      MELROSE" 

the  left.  This,  which  has  nearly  always  been 
copied  incorrectly,  is  arranged  as  follows, 
without  any  date: 
|oI)n  :  JEoroto  :  sfumtgrne :  callit : 
SMaiS :  I :  anb  :  born  :  in  :  Ipargsisfe : 
dcrtainlg  :  anJ) :  l)ab  :  in  kcping 
^11 :  majson  :  rocrk  :  of  :  .^antan  : 
Prugsi :  gc :  l)jic :  kirk  :  of  :  Slajs 
(StD  :  pclrojS :  anb  :  PajJleg  :  of  : 
HgblJgjstianU  :  anb  :  of  :  Saltoas  : 
>I<Pran  :  to  :  (Hob  :  anb  :  JEari :  baitl)  : 
^nb  jstDcct :  siantt :  |ol)n  :  to  :  keep  :  tl)ij( :  Ijalg :  kirk : 
fra :  sikaiti). 

But  the  Abbey's  finest  feature,  as  is  well 
known, is  the  east  oriel,  rendered  so  famous 
by  The  Lay.  It  is  fortunately  entire,  and 
whether  viewed  from  without  or  within, 
at  noon  or  "  by  the  pale  moonlight,"  it  is 
marvellously  corroborative  of  the  high 
praise  Scott  has  bestowed  upon  it.  Atten- 
tion may  also  be  drawn  to  the  original  roof 
covering  the  east  end  of  the  chancel;  to 
Deloraine's  doorway  (the  "steel-clenched 
postern"  of  the  poem)  leading  from  the 
cloisters ;  and  to  the  exquisite  carving  of 
the  stalls,  which  Lockhart  declares  to  be 
157 


FOOTSTEPS  OF  SCOTT 
"  unrivalled  by  anything  elsewhere  extant, 
I  do  not  say  in  Gothic  architecture  merely, 
but  in  any  architecture  whatever.  Roses 
and  lilies,  and  thistles,  and  ferns  and 
heaths,  in  all  their  varieties,  and  oak  leaves 
and  ash  leaves,  and  a  thousand  beautiful 
shapes  besides,  are  chiselled  with  such  in- 
imitable truth  and  such  grace  of  nature, 
that  the  finest  botanist  in  the  world  could 
not  desire  a  better  hortus  siccus,  so  far  as 
they  go."  Note  should  be  taken  of  the  pro- 
minence given  throughout  the  sculpture 
to  the  curly  green,  or  common  garden  kail, 
all  as  delicately  executed  as  the  natural  leaf. 
But,  as  has  been  said,  mere  description 
counts  for  little  in  dealing  with  such  a 
subject.  What  must  one  say  of  the  exterior 
with  its  numberless  niches  and  canopies, 
with  its  wealth  of  ornamentation,  the  most 
diverse,  the  most  strange  imaginable,  from 
representations  of  the  royal  founder  him- 
self, and  his  queen,  to  such  a  wildly  gro- 
tesque figure  as  that  of  a  pig  playing  the 
bagpipe,  or  the  scores  of  gaping  gargoyles, 
158 


"FAIR  MELROSE" 
which  are  said  to  symbolize  the  misery  of 
the  impenitent,  and  of  those  who  are  cast 
out  of  the  church !  For  variety  and  splen- 
dour of  workmanship,  not  in  one  detail, 
but  throughout  all  the  structure,  Melrose 
exhibits  probably  the  finest  example  of  me- 
diaeval Gothic  which  Britain  can  boast  of. 

Some  of  the  inscriptions,  in  addition  to 
those  quoted,  are  interesting  and  touching : 

THE  DUST  OF  MANY  GENERATIONS  OF  THE 
BOSTONS  OF  GATTONSIDE  IS  DEPOSITED  IN 
THIS  PLACE.  WE  GIVE  OUR  BODIES  TO  THIS 
HOLY  ABBEY  TO  KEEP. 

ORATE  PRO  ANIMA  FRATRIS  PETRI  AERARII 
[pray  FOR  THE  SOUL  OF  BROTHER  PETER 
THE  treasurer]. 

heir  lyis  the  race  of  ye  hovs  of  zair 
[yair]. 

hic  jacet  johanna  d.  ross. 

The  subject  of  the  last-quoted  inscription 
was  Queen  of  Alexander  II., — Alexander 
himself  being  interred  by  the  High  Altar, 
where  also  reposes  the  Heart  of  Bruce; 
the  hero  of  Otterburn,  and  others  of  his 
race.  Buried  just  outside  the  Chancel 
(though  this  is  mere  conjecture)  are  the 
159 


FOOTSTEPS  OF  SCOTT 
English  commanders  who  fell  at  Ancrum 
Moor  ^ ;  while  the  adjoining  slab  (according 
to  The  Lay)  covers  the  most  notable  per- 
sonage laid  within  those  walls — 

"The  wondrous  Michael  Scot, 
A  Wizard  of  such  dreaded  fame, 
That  when  in  Salamanca's  cave 
Him  listed  his  magic  wand  to  wave, 
The  bells  would  ring  in  Notre-Dame  ! " 

This  Michael,  who  lived  in  the  13th  cen- 
tury, contemporary  with  Roger  Bacon, 
earned,  like  Bacon,  the  character  of  a  ma- 
gician by  his  learning  and  research.  It  was 
he  who  (as  tradition  tells)  cleft  the  Eildon 
Hills  in  three ;  who  bridled  the  Tweed  with 
a  curb  of  stone  [at  Kelso];  who  set  his 
familiar  the  hopeless  task  of  spinning  ropes 
from  the  sands  of  Berwick  Bar. 

Several  stones  in  the  churchyard  call  for 

1  It  was  Evers  and  Latoun  who  defaced  the  Douglas  monu- 
ments, and  otherwise  despoiled  the  Abbey.  There  is  no 
positive  proof  that  they  were  permitted  shelter  here,  even  in 
death.  Is  it  necessary  to  add  that  the  grave  of  Michael  Scot 
is  purely  imaginary  ?  Sir  "Walter  was  not  thinking  of  any 
particular  place  of  sepulture  wlien  he  wrote  The  Lay. 
Bower  was  the  first  to  centre  attention  on  what  now  goes  by 
the  appellation  of  the  Wizard's  Tomb. 

160 


"FAIR     MELROSE" 

notice.  In  the  ministers'  ground  is  the 
"  throuch  "  of  John  Knox,  grand-nephew 
of  the  Reformer,  who  served  the  cure  of 
Melrose  from  1584  to  1623. 

A  small  red  stone  (lately  restored)  bears 
these  pregnant  lines,  so  often  upon  the  lips 
of  Scott.  "  I  can  never  forget  the  awe-strik- 
ing solemnity  with  which  he  pronounced 
them,"  wrote  the  widow  of  John  Ballantyne 
in  her  Reminiscences : 

"  The  earth  goeth  on  the  earth 

Glist'ring  like  gold ; 
The  earth  goes  to  the  earth 

Sooner  than  it  wold  ; 
The  earth  builds  on  the  earth 

Castles  and  towers ; 
The  earth  says  to  tlie  earth 

All  shall  be  ours." 

Then  we  shall  want  to  look  at  the 
grave  of  Tom  Purdie,  from  which  point 
also  the  Abbey  appears  at  its  best.  In  the 
literature  of  epitaphs  there  is  no  more 
beautiful  inscription  than  that  penned  by 
Scott : 

161  11 


FOOTSTEPS      OF      SCOTT 
In  grateful  remembrance 

OF 

The  faithful 

AND  attached  SERVICES 

OF 

TWENTY-TWO  YEARS 

AND  IN  SORROW 

FOR  THE  LOSS  OF  A  HUMBLE 

BUT  SINCERE  FRIEND 

THIS  STONE  WAS  ERECTED 

BY 

Sir  Walter  Scott,  Bart., 
OF  Abbotsford. 


Here  lies  the  body 

OF 

THOMAS  PURDIE 

WOOD-FORESTER 

AT  Abbotsford 
WHO  died  29  October 

1829 

AGED  SIXTY-TWO  YEARS. 

"  Thou  hast  been  faithful 
Over  a  few  things, 
I  will  make  thee  ruler 
Over  many  tilings." 

A  third  stone  keeps  green  the  memory  of 
the  Christian  philosopher,  Sir  David  Brew- 
ster, the  acknowledged  master  of  optics  in 
162 


"FAIR      MELROSE" 

his  time,  for  whom  the  text  (self -chosen) 
has  sweet  significance,  "  The  Lord  is  my 
Light." 

Meh'ose  Cross,  dated  1642  (a  restoration), 
should  be  noted  in  the  centre  of  the  town, 
and  it  is  worth  while  to  walk  as  far  as  the 
Parish  Church,  from  the  back  of  which  there 
is  a  specially  fine  landscape  of  the  Tweed, 
with  its  ^vooded  banks,  and  the  orchard  vil- 
lage of  Gattonside,  a  relic  of  monkish  days. 

Melrose  was  the  only  place  of  which  Scott 
took  a  formal  farewell  before  his  death. 
The  incident  is  narrated  in  the  A  bbofsford 
Notandaoi  Robert  Carruthers :  "One  morn- 
ing Laidlaw's  family  were  startled  to  see 
Sir  Walter  approaching  Kaeside,  feeble,  and 
wearing  his  nightcap,  which  apparently  he 
had  forgotten  to  exchange  for  a  hat.  No 
notice  was  taken  of  the  circumstance.  After 
the  usual  kindly  salutations,  he  said,  with 
a  tremulous  voice,  that  he  had  come  to  take 
a  last  look  at  the  Abbey.  He  proceeded  to 
an  elevated  point  commanding  a  view  of 
the  spot,  and  after  gazing  long  andanxious- 
163 


FOOTSTEPS  OF  SCOTT 
\y  down  on  the  town  and  Abbey,  he  said 
slowly,  'It  is  a  venerable  ruin!'  and  re- 
turned to  Abbotsf ord."  And  it  is  what  it  is 
almost  entirely  because  of  his  Magician's 
hand.  While  it  is  The  Lay  that  has  cast  the 
most  potent  spell  over  Melrose  Abbey,  one 
cannot  be  dull  to  the  visions  and  the  voices 
called  into  being  in  the  pages  of  The  Mon- 
astery and  The  Abbot.  There  long -lost 
golden  days  return.  We  see  a  reanimated 
Melrose.  We  listen  to  the  music  of  far-away 
centuries, — the  joyous  chime,  the  dolorous 
plaint,  the  festival  chorus,  the  hymn  for 
the  dead !  So  may  one  dream  in  the  de- 
serted aisles  of  "  fair  Melrose."  To-day  all 
is  hushed  and  still  where  holy  men  have 
trod ;  where  monarchs  have  met  for  com- 
fort and  counsel  at  great  crises  of  their 
history.  Outside,  the  world  of  Nature  has 
changed  but  little.  Still  "  distant  Tweed  is 
heard  to  rave  "  in  its  wintry  floods,  or  to 
chant  its  spring-tide  benison.  But  the  men 
who  knew  Melrose ;  who  gazed  upon  this 
temple  in  its  first  peerless  beauty;  who 
164 


MELROSE   ABBEY 

From  a  water-colour  draining  By 
TOM   SCOTT,   K.S.A. 


"  Anno  Milleno,  centeno,  ier  quoquc  deno 
Et  sexto  Christi,  Melrose  fundata  fuisti.' 

The  moon  on.  the  east  oriel  shone 
Through  slender  shafts  of  shapely  stone, 
Byfoliaged  tracery  conibin  d  ; 
Thou  would' st  have  thought  some  fairy' s  hand 
'  Twixt  poplars  straight  the  ozier  wand. 
In  many  a  freakish  knot,  had  twin  d ; 
Thenfram'd  a  spell,  when  the  work  was  done, 
And  chang'd  the  willow-wreaths  to  stone." 

SCOTT. 


"FAIR     MELROSE" 

reared  its  shapely  pillars,  its  faultless 
arches,  its  traceried  windows  ;  whose  skill 
will  look  out  for  many  a  day  from  cor- 
bel, and  shaft,  and  capital,  are  no  longer 
responsive  to  such  sights  and  sounds  as 
graced  their  brief  hour  of  earth-born 
feUcity.  A  new  race  wanders  aimlessly 
through  the  ancient  ways.  In  summer,  the 
rapture  of  the  birds  makes  pleasant  min- 
strelsy. Through  nights  dark  and  long,  the 
wdnd  sings  ghostly  requiem. 

To  trace  Scott's  footsteps  within  what 
may  be  called  the  Melrose  radius,  will  not 
be  out  of  place  in  the  present  chapter. 
There  is  the  Leader  valley,  with  Earlston 
(anciently  Ercildoune),  a  haunt  of  Sir  Wal- 
ter, which  furnish  ed  him  with  one  of  his  best 
Minstrelsy  ballads;  and  above  all,wdth  that 
old-w^orld  figure  of  the  Rhymer,  in  whom 
his  interest  never  flagged  from  boyhood. 
That  the  metrical  romance  of  Sir  Tristrem 
was  the  original  work  of  Thomas  the  Rhy- 
mer, Scott  did  not  hesitate  to  affirm.  This 
he  sought  to  prove  in  a  singularly  erudite 
165 


FOOTSTEPS      OF      SCOTT 

essay  prefacing  his  edition  of  the  tale  pub- 
lished in  1804,  from  the  Auchinleck  MS.  in 
the  Advocates' Library.  While  the  majority 
of  critics  do  not  accept  Scott's  view,  it  is  re- 
freshing to  find  his  claims  in  Thomas's  be- 
half supported  no  less  vigorously  by  a 
present-day  student  of  the  subject  (see 
M'Neill's  Sir  Tristrem  in  Scottish  Text 
Society's  Series,  1886).  That  the  Rhymer's 
connection  with  the  story  is  not  first-hand 
is  clear  from  the  fact  that  Sir  Tristrem  was 
known  throughout  Europe  at  least  a  cen- 
tury before  Thomas's  time.  The  suggestion, 
however,  that  it  was  he  who  gave  it  shape 
in  good  Scots  is  reasonable  enough.  Like 
Michael  Scot,  and  Merlin,  legend  has  in- 
vested the  Rhymer  with  the  most  remark- 
able powers,  chiefly  prophetical,  and  up  to 
the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century  his 
place  as  the  vates  sacer  of  the  people  was 
unquestioned.  Reputed  sayings  of  his  are 
to  be  found  in  all  parts  of  the  land,  and  the 
ballad  of  Tliomas  the  Rhymer,  in  which 
many  of  these  are  embodied,  together  with 
166 


"FAIR     MELROSE" 

Scott's  own  version,  detailing  the  tradition 
of  the  Seer's  disappearance,  constitutes  a 
curious  study  in  the  credulity  of  an  age  so 
tinged  with  the  superstitious. 

Earlston  is  naturally  song-haunted,  as 
befits  the  birthplace  of  one  who  has  been 
styled  "  the  day-starre  of  Scottish  poetry." 
At  Mellerstain,  within  the  parish,  is  the 
grave  of  Grisell  Baillie,  the  Polwarth  girl- 
heroine,  and  writer  of  the  pathetic  lyric, 
which  Scott  was  so  fond  of  reciting,  Werena 
my  Heart  licht  Itvad  die.  And  who  has  not 
heard  of  Cowdenknowes,  where  happy 
maids  and  men  have  trysted  since  time 

was? 

"  Oh,  the  broom,  the  bonnie,  bonnie  broom  ! 
The  broom  o'  the  Cowdenknowes  ! 
I  wish  I  were  with  my  dear  swain, 
"With  his  pipe  and  my  yowes ! " 

Of  this  song  there  are  no  fewer  than  half- 
a-dozen  versions,  and  the  amorous  ballad 
on  which  all  of  them  are  based  Scott  cap- 
tured for  the  Minstrelsy.  At  Bemersyde, 
overlooking  a  bold  bluff  of  the  Tweed,  and 
immediately  opposite  the  beautiful  bend 
167 


FOOTSTEPS  OF  SCOTT 
on  which  stood  the  original  Melrose,  the 
scene  of  Aidan's,and  Boisirs,andCuthbert's 
ministrations,  Scott  spent  many  joyous 
hours  with  the  Haigs,  his  last  visit  being 
with  Turner,  the  painter,  in  1831.  There 
seemed  to  him  "almost  a  wizard  spell" 
hanging  over  Bemersyde,  he  said,  re- 
counting the  prophecy  of  Thomas  the 
Rhymer,  in  which  in  his  young  days  he 
most  potently  believed : 

"  Tyde  what  may  betyde, 
Haig  shall  be  Haig  of  Bemersyde." 

It  was  the  eccentric  Earl  of  Buchan,  a 
prince  of  bores,  the  same  who  planned 
Scott's  funeral  at  the  1818  crisis,  who  reared 
the  red  Wallace  colossus  holding  solitary 
empire  on  the  brow  of  a  precipitous  bank 
facing  the  Tweed,  between  Bemersyde  and 
Dryburgh.  At  Mertoun  House,  Scott  wrote 
the  Eve  of  St  John,  learned  German,  and 
conversed  with  a  lady  who  knew  Pope 
and  the  wits  of  Queen  Anne's  time.  Les- 
sudden  House,  the  seat  of  the  Scotts  of 
Raeburn  (Sir  Walter's  branch) ;  Littledean, 
168 


"FAIR      MELROSE" 

recalling  the  notorious  "  Deil "  of  that  ilk, 
a  memory  of  Scott's  childhood  mentioned 
in  the  Ashestiel  fragment ;  Makerstoun,  a 
Makdougall  domain ;  and  Sandyknowe  it- 
self, are  all  in  the  near  neighbourhood. 

But  Scott's  footsteps  are  not  to  be  traced 
within  only  one  particular  district  of  the 
Border.  There  is  scarcely  a  spot,  indeed, 
that  does  not  claim  some  connection  with 
him.  It  was  at  Jedburgh  that  he  made  his 
first  appearance  as  a  criminal  counsel, 
pleading  successfully  for  his  client,  a  noted 
poacher.  "  You're  a  lucky  scoundrel,"  Scott 
whispered  to  him  when  the  verdict  had  been 
given.  "I'm  just  o'  your  mind,"  was  the 
reply, "  and  I'll  send  you  a  maukin  [a  hare] 
the  morn,  man ! "  Selkirk  was  the  scene  of 
his  later  legal  life.  It  was  the  centre  of  his 
Sheriffdom,  and  the  key  to  the  Ettrick  and 
Yarrow  valleys,  names  constantly  upon  his 
lips,  and  redolent  of  reminiscences  the  most 
pleasurable  in  a  career  not  always  sans 
souci.  In  the  latter  valley  he  gathered  not 
a  few  gems  for  the  Minstrelsy.  Here  Philip- 
169 


FOOTSTEPS      OF      SCOTT 

haugh  and  Hangingshaw,  Lewinshope  and 
Tinnis,  remind  us  of  the  Sang  of  the  Outlaio 
Murray.  At  Newark,  The  Lay  was  recited. 
"Sweet  Bowhill,"  the  fountain  of  its  in- 
spiration, is  a  field-breadth  or  two  off.  At 
Foulshiels,  Mungo  Park  was  born  in  the 
same  year  as  Scott.  Broadmeadows,  near 
by,  is  linked  with  Scott's  ambition  to  be- 
come "laird  of  the  cairn  and  the  scaur." 
Yarrow  Kirk,  recently  (1906)  restored,  Scott 
styled  "  the  shrine  of  his  ancestors."  Ash- 
estiel  was  in  the  parish,  and  occasionally  he 
rode  across  the  hills  to  worship.  John 
Rutherford,  his  great-grandfather,  was 
minister  from  1691  to  1710.  Yarrow's  In- 
scribed Stone  had  no  little  interest  for  Scott, 
who  imagined  that  it  bore  some  relation  to 
the  tragedy  depicted  in  the  Dowie  Dens 
ballad : 

"  Late  at  e'en,  drinking  the  wine, 
And  ere  they  paid  the  lawing, 
They  set  a  combat  them  between, 
To  fight  it  in  the  dawing." 

The  inscription,  however,  has  been  found 
170 


ST  MARY'S  LOCH,  ST  MARY'S  CHURCHYARD, 

AND  DRYHOPE  TOWER 

From  a  ivater-colour  drawing  by 

TOM  SCOTT,   R.S.A.. 


"The  Steep  hills 
Send  to  the  lake  a  thousand  rills  ; 
In  swmmer  tide,  so  soft  they  weep, 
The  sound  but  lulls  the  ear  asleep  ; 
Your  horse's  hoof-tread  sounds  too  rude 
So  stilly  is  the  solitude. 
Naught  living  meets  the  eye  and  ear, 
But  well  I  ween  the  dead  are  near  ; 
For  though,  in  feudal  strife,  a  foe 
Hath  laid  Our  Lady's  chapel  low, 
Yet  still,  beneath  the  hallow  d  soil. 
The  peasant  rests  himfrotn  his  toil. 
And,  dying,  bids  his  bones  be  laid, 
Where  erst  his  simple  fathers  pray  d. 

Then  gaze  on  Dryhope's  ruin'd  tower. 
And  think  on  Yarrow  s faded  Flower." 

SCOTT 


"FAIR      MELROSE" 

to  date  back  to  the  fifth  or  sixth  century, 
while  the  ballad  was  not  unlikely  of  the 
seventeenth  century,  if  an  extract  from 
the  Selkirk  Presbytery  Records  is  to  be 
held  as  chronicling  what,  at  all  events, 
looks  like  a  clue  to  the  "  affair."  Haunted 
Yarrow  contains  Blackhouse  also,  the  lo- 
cale of  The  Douglas  Tragedy;  and  Dryhope, 
sacred  to  the  Flower  of  Yarrow's  winsome 
memory.  The  Kirk  of  St  Mary,  on  the 
heights  above  St  Mary's  Loch,  has  long 
since  vanished  (see  canto  ii.  of  The  Lay  for 
an  account  of  its  destruction) ;  but  on  its  site 
the  loneliest  kirkyard  of  "  the  South  Coun- 
tree,"  scene  of  the  dramatic  denouement  in 
The  Gay  Goss-Haivk,  may  still  be  visited. 

Scott's  lines  in  The  Lay  descriptive  of 
Yarrow's  "silent  lake,"  in  its  marvellous 
reflections  rivalling  the  Norwegian  Suld- 
alsvand,  are  not  quite  true  to  the  modern 
facts.  It  cannot  now  be  said  (except,  per- 
haps, in  winter-tide)  that 

"Your  horse's  hoof-tread  sounds  too  rude, 
So  stilly  is  the  solitude !" 

171 


FOOTSTEPS      OF      SCOTT 

But  there  is  an  old-world  serenity  about 
Henderland;  and  at  the  grave  of  "Perys  of 
Cokburne  and  hys  wyfe  Marjory"  not  a 
sound  assails  the  ear  save  the  murmuring 
of  the  stream.  Meggetdale  is  a  less  frequen- 
ted spot,  though  hardly  less  romantic  than 
its  more  classic  neighbour.  How  few  know 
the  superlative  beauty  of  its  Dow  Glen, 
where,  as  Scott  tells  us,  the  Lady  of  that 
very  pathetic  plaint.  The  Lament  of  the  Bor- 
der Widow,  strove  "to  drown,  amid  the 
roar  of  a  foaming  cataract,  the  tumultuous 
noise  which  announced  the  close  of  her 
husband's  existence!"  The  far-famed  hos- 
telry of  "Tibbie  Shiel's,"  on  the  peninsula 
between  St  Mary's  and  the  Loch  of  the 
Lowes,  received  many  a  visit  from  Scott, 
whose  conception  of  "a  complete  day's  idle- 
ness" meant  frequently  a  drive  "  up  Yarrow  " 
to  "Tibbie's,"  and  occasionally  further  on  to 
Chapelhope  or  Birkhill,  and  the  Grey  Mare's 
Tail.  "We  ascended  the  Birkhill  path,"  he 
wrote,  after  one  of  his  visits  in  1826,  "under 
the  moist  and  misty  influence  of  the  genius 
172 


"FAIR      MELROSE" 

loci.  Never  mind ;  my  companions  were 
merry  and  I  cheerful.  Our  luncheon  eaten 
in  the  herd's  cottage ;  but  the  poor  woman 
saddened  me  unawares  by  asking  for  poor 
Charlotte,  whom  she  had  often  seen  there 
with  me.  She  put  me  in  mind  that  I  had 
come  twice  over  those  hills  and  bogs  with 
a  wheeled-carriage  before  the  road,  now 
an  excellent  one,  was  made.  I  knew  it  was 
true,  but,  on  my  soul,  looking  where  we 
must  have  gone,  I  could  hardly  believe  I 
had  been  such  a  fool."  On  an  earlier  date, 
Skene  describes  Sir  Walter's  affection  for 
the  locality:  "I  need  not  tell  you  that  St 
Mary's  Loch  and  the  Loch  of  the  Lowes 
were  amongst  the  most  favourite  scenes  of 
our  excursions,  as  his  fondness  for  them 
continued  to  his  last  days,  and  we  have 
both  visited  them  many  times  together." 
Hogg  led  Scott's  party  once  or  twice,  and 
recalling  it  afterwards,  remarks:  "I  was 
disappointed  in  never  seeing  one  incident 
in  his  subsequent  works  laid  in  a  scene  re- 
sembling the  rugged  solitudes  around  Loch 
173 


FOOTSTEPS  OF  SCOTT 
Skene,  for  I  never  saw  him  survey  any  with 
so  much  attention.  A  single  serious  look 
at  a  scene  generally  filled  his  mind  with  it, 
and  he  seldom  took  another;  but  here  he 
took  in  all  the  names  of  the  hills,  their  al- 
titudes, and  relative  situations  with  regard 
to  one  another,  and  made  me  repeat  them 
several  times."  Nevertheless,  in  Old  Mo?^- 
tality,  as  well  as  in  the  Introduction  to 
the  second  canto  of  Marinion,  Scott  turned 
his  excursions  to  excellent  account  in  some 
of  his  grandest  word-paintings. 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE  LAST  PHASE 

It  is  pathetic  to  recall  that  Scott  had  practi- 
cally only  one  year  of  unclouded  happiness 
in  the  completed  Abbotsford.  The  last 
touches  were  barely  given  to  the  castle  of 
his  dreams;  the  ambition  of  his  life  was 
not  at  its  full  flood-mark,  when  the  blow 
fell  which  made  him  one  of  the  most  sorely 
smitten  men  in  history,  A  denouement 
more  unexpected,  more  unavoidable,  more 
tragic,  it  would  not  be  easy  to  imagine.  So 
far  as  Scott  is  concerned,  he  was  clearly 
blameworthy,  and  he  knew  it.  He  had  no 
conception,  however,  of  the  burden  that 
Fate  had  laid  upon  him.  It  is  useless  at- 
tempting to  estimate  the  amount  of  blame 
which  should  be  meted  out  to  Scott  as  a- 
gainst  Ballantyne  and  Constable.  All  three 
must  be  held  censurable,  though  the  in- 
175 


FOOTSTEPS  OF  SCOTT 
tegrity  of  none  of  them  may  be  impeached 
for  a  moment.  It  was  a  case  of  sheer  fin- 
ancial blundering.  Scott  trusted  too  impli- 
citly to  Ballantyne,  who  was  not  a  very 
efficient  master-printer;  and  to  Constable, 
who  ground  his  own  axe  rather  too  keenly 
at  Scott's  expense.  At  the  same  time  there 
can  be  no  doubt  that  Scott  used,  for  Abbots- 
ford,  money  which  should  have  been  put 
into  the  printing  business.  It  was  this  in- 
ordinate love  of  land  which  lay  at  the  root 
of  the  trouble.  Lockhart  is  manifestly  un- 
just to  James  Ballantyne  in  saddling  him 
with  the  chief  responsibility  for  the  ca- 
tastrophe. Scott  must  have  known  how 
things  were  going,  though  Lockhart  is 
sure  that  he  did  not  know.  But  how  can 
it  be  explained  (even  Lockhart  himself 
wonders)  that  a  man  so  careful  about  his 
purely  personal  expenses,  who  kept  "a 
day-book  and  ledger  as  regularly  as  any 
cheesemonger  in  the  Grassmarket,"  and 
could  have  given  "  the  sum-total  of  six- 
pences that  it  had  cost  him  to  ride  through 
176 


THE     LAST     PHASE 

turnpike  gates  during  a  period  of  thirty- 
years,"  should  have  been  so  loose  in  his 
commercial  dealings  as  head  of  a  great 
printing  firm  ?  It  is  impossible  not  to  have 
sympathy  v^dth  Scott,  impossible  also  to 
exonerate  him  in  the  least.  Whatever 
may  be  said  of  the  affair  for  one  side  or 
the  other,  the  fact  remains  that  Scott  was 
really  the  architect  of  his  own  misfortune. 
It  was  in  January  1826  that  Hurst,  Rob- 
inson &  Co.,  the  London  agents  of  Con- 
stable, collapsed,  and  with  them  went  down 
not  only  Constable  and  the  Ballantynes, 
but  Scott  himself.  The  sum  for  which  he 
held  himself  responsible  has  been  put  at 
various  figures.  The  most  accurate  esti- 
mate may  be  taken  to  be  about  £130,000, 
creditors'  claims  amounting  to  £120,000, 
with  a  private  debt  of  £10,000,  previously 
raised  on  Abbotsf  ord  in  the  hope  of  avert- 
ing the  disaster.  For  assets,  there  were 
Scott's  shares  in  several  companies;  the 
Castle  Street  house,  the  curios,  books,  and 
furniture.  Abbotsford,  being  entailed  at 
177  1^ 


FOOTSTEPS      OF      SCOTT 

the  time  of  his  son's  marriage  with  Miss 
Jobson,  was  out  of  creditors'  reach,  though 
at  one  time  Scott  feared  it  would  have  to 
go.  Notwithstanding  the  amazingly  bold 
front  maintained  by  Sir  Walter  in  face  of 
such  a  catastrophe,  it  is  wide  of  the  truth 
to  say  that  he  accepted  the  situation  in  a 
flippant  spirit.  That  is  utterly  to  demean 
and  belittle  Scott,  who  felt  his  position 
much  more  acutely  than  his  conduct  per- 
haps showed  at  the  time. 

No  reader  of  the  Journal,  the  commence- 
ment of  which  coincides,  curiously,  with 
the  crisis,  can  fail  to  note  the  tinge  of  sad- 
ness and  melancholy  that  overshadows  the 
most  of  it.  There,  at  any  rate,  Scott's  true 
self  is  seen.  But  it  was  typical  of  the  man 
to  set  a  stout  heart  to  the  stey  brae  that 
had  suddenly  shot  up  in  front  of  him.  We 
see  him  at  his  best  now,  buckling  to  the 
uninviting  prospect  with  a  resolution  and 
a  strenuousness  that  have  no  parallel  in 
literary  history.  "I  feel  neither  dishon- 
oured nor  broken  down  by  the  bad,  now 
178 


THE     LAST     PHASE 

really  bad,  news  I  have  received,"  we  find 
him  writing  immediately  after  the  crash. 
"I  will  not  yield  without  a  fight  for  it.  It  is 
odd,  when  I  set  myself  to  work  doggedly, 
as  Dr  Johnson  would  say,  I  am  exactly  the 
same  man  that  I  ever  was — neither  low- 
spirited  nor  distrait.  In  prosperous  times  I 
have  sometimes  felt  my  fancy  and  powers 
of  language  flag,  but  adversity  is  to  me  at 
least  a  tonic  and  bracer;  the  fountain  is 
awakened  from  its  innaost  recesses,  as  if 
the  spirit  of  affliction  had  troubled  it  in 
his  passage."  Scott  was  nothing  if  not  san- 
guine. Never,  moreover,  was  man  more 
keenly  independent.  He  was  determined, 
he  said  many  times,  "to  give  every  man  his 
own."  "If  my  life  is  spared  nobody  will 
lose  a  penny  by  me."  "  This  right  hand  will 
work  it  all  off."  "  Time  and  I  against  any 
two."  Scott  was  the  soul  of  honour  all 
through — in  the  heyday  of  his  strength, 
in  the  hour  of  his  declension.  Of  this  the 
six  years  that  followed  furnish  the  most 
striking  testimony.  He  saw  that  for  the 
179 


FOOTSTEPS      OF      SCOTT 

battle  to  be  won  meant  the  making  of  huge 
sacrifices.  So  "dear  39"  went,  not  without  a 
pang.  The  Abbotsf ord  expenses  were  re- 
duced to  a  minimum.  And,  very  different 
from  his  usual  habit  of  work,  he  stuck  at 
his  desk  all  day  long  on  occasion.  Wood- 
stock was  on  the  "stocks"  when  the  crisis 
came.  This,  finished  in  three  months, 
brought  the  unprecedented  sum  of  £8228. 
During  the  next  year  his  great  Life  of  Nap- 
oleon ended  by  bringing  double  the  Wood- 
stock figure,  by  which,  with  the  addition  of 
profits  from  other  sales,  he  was  enabled  to 
clear  off  no  less  than  £30,000.  It  was  amid 
all  this  marvellous  energy  and  success  that 
some  of  his  creditors  (chiefly  a  Jew  broker, 
one  Abud)  were  so  merciless  in  their  per- 
secution of  him,  and  he  went  about,  like 
Burns,  in  momentary  terror  of  being  ap- 
prehended and  thrust  into  a  debtor's  cell. 
It  was,  indeed,  only  the  magnanimity 
of  another  creditor,  Sir  William  Forbes, 
which  averted  the  affront ;  a  graceful  act 
on  the  part  of  Scott's  friend  and  former 
180 


THE     LAST     PHASE 

rival.  It  was  in  this  year,  too,  that  Scott 
passed  through  that  crowning  sorrow  pos- 
sible to  man — the  loss  of  his  wife.  Never- 
theless, there  was  no  abatement  of  zeal. 
He  seemed  rather  to  grow  the  more  anx- 
ious and  the  more  absorbed  as  the  days  flew 
past.  When  one  recalls  that  the  output  of 
this  period  comprises  no  fewer  than  forty 
volumes,  besides  numerous  reviews,  and 
the  issue  of  a  collected  edition  of  the  novels 
— the  Magnum  Opus — furnished  with  pre- 
faces and  notes  by  his  own  hand,  it  seems 
perfectly  marvellous  that,  despite  failing 
health  and  other  hindering  elements,  he 
should  have  been  able  to  accomplish  such 
an  array  of  work.  Of  course  it  was  bound 
to  tell  in  the  end.  Nor  can  we  doubt  that 
Scott  anticipated  the  evolution  of  events 
as  they  actually  emerged.  In  1825  we  find 
an  entry  in  the  Diary  to  this  effect :  "  My 
dear  wife,  the  partner  of  early  cares  and 
successes,  is,  I  fear,  frail  in  health— though 
I  trust  and  pray  she  may  see  me  out.  Indeed, 
if  this  troublesome  complaint  goes  on,  it 
181 


FOOTSTEPS      OF      SCOTT 

bodes  no  long  existence.  My  brother  was 
affected  with  the  same  weakness,  which,  be- 
fore he  was  fifty,  brought  on  mortal  symp- 
toms. But  my  father,  the  most  abstemious 
of  men,  save  when  the  duties  of  hospitality 
required  him  to  be  very  moderately  free 
with  his  bottle,  and  that  was  very  seldom, 
had  the  same  w^eakness  which  now  annoys 
me,  and  he,  I  think,  was  not  above  seventy 
when  cut  off.  Square  the  odds,  and  good- 
night, Sir  Walter,  about  sixty.  I  care  not, 
if  Heave  my  name  unstained  and  my  family 
properly  settled.  Sat  est  vixisse." 

It  was  on  February  15,  1830,  that  the 
blow — long  dreaded,  long  expected — fell: 
a  shock  of  paralysis,  his  first  real  seizure 
to  be  sure,  but  the  outcome  of  a  premoni- 
tory series  of  troubles  which  had  been  go- 
ing on  for  months.  On  his  return  from  the 
Court,  in  his  usual  health  as  it  seemed,  he 
found  an  old  friend  (Miss  Young,  of  Haw- 
ick) waiting  in  his  house  at  6,  Shandwick 
Place,  to  consult  him  about  a  Memoir  of 
her  father,  which  he  had  promised  to  re- 
182 


THE     LAST     PHASE 

vise  for  the  press.  When  looking  at  the 
manuscript,  the  stroke  came.  A  slight  con- 
tortion passed  over  his  features.  In  a  min- 
ute or  two  he  rose,  staggered  to  the  draw- 
ing-room, where  Anne  Scott  and  Violet 
Lockhart  met  him  as  he  fell  insensible  on 
the  floor.  A  surgeon,  quickly  at  hand,  cup- 
ped him,  and  in  a  few  hours  he  was  practi- 
cally himself  again;  able  to  speak,  and 
within  a  day  or  two  to  resume  his  Court 
duties.  There  was,  however,  no  mistaking 
the  serious  nature  of  the  symptoms ;  and, 
as  Lockhart  says,  "considering  the  terrible 
violence,  and  agitation,  and  exertion  to 
which  he  had  been  subjected  during  the 
four  preceding  years,  the  only  wonder  is 
that  this  blow  was  deferred  so  long ;  there 
can  be  none  that  it  was  soon  followed  by 
others."  During  1831  a  very  great  change 
for  the  worse  took  place.  "I  cannot  say  the 
world  opens  pleasantly  for  me  this  New 
Year,"  Scott  wrote  on  January  1.  "  I  feel 
myself  decidedly  weaker  in  point  of  health, 
and  am  now  confirmed  I  have  had  a  par- 
183 


FOOTSTEPS  OF  SCOTT 
alytic  touch  [there  had  been  a  second  in 
the  preceding  November].  I  speak  and  read 
with  embarrassment,  and  even  my  hand- 
writing seems  to  stammer.    This  general 

failure 

'  With  mortal  crisis  doth  portend 
My  days  to  appropinque  an  end.'" 

Five  days  later  there  is  this  somewhat 
disconsolate  entry:  "Very  indifferent,with 
more  awkward  feelings  than  I  can  well 
bear  up  against.  My  voice  sunk,  and  my 
head  strangely  confused.  When  I  begin 
to  form  my  ideas  for  conversation,  expres- 
sions fail  me."  Indeed  the  Journal  turns  to 
be  sad  reading  now,  overshadowed  as  it  is 
by  the  painful  contres- temps  which  were 
becoming  so  recurrent.  In  the  course  of 
the  year,  doctors'  treatment  yielding  no 
benefit,  from  his  constant  determination  to 
be  at  his  desk,  it  was  deemed  advisable,  as 
a  possible  chance  of  prolonging  his  life  for 
a  little  at  all  events,  that  he  should  winter 
abroad.  His  son  Charles  being  attached  to 
the  British  Legation  at  Naples,  Italy  was 
184 


THE     LAST     PHASE 

chosen.  Accordingly  on  September  23  Scott 
quitted  Abbotsford,  practically  for  ever. 
There  is  pathos  in  the  recital  of  farewell 
visits,  and  in  the  final  instructions  to  Laid- 
law:  "Be  very  careful  about  the  dogs." 
James  Mathieson,  of  Hawick  (old  Peter's 
grandson),  has  told  how  the  servants  gath- 
ered in  a  body  upon  the  stair-landing  to 
bid  their  master  goodbye,  and  how  Sir 
Walter,  observing  the  boy  of  nine  among 
them,  patted  him  kindly  on  the  head,  pop- 
ping a  half-crown  piece  into  his  hand,  and 
telling  him  to  be  a  "guid  laddie"  till  he 
came  back.  It  is  refreshing  to  remark  that 
the  Whig  Government  of  the  day  (Scott 
was  a  consummate  Tory)  placed  a  tine  war- 
frigate  at  his  disposal — the  Barham — Cap- 
tain (afterwards  Sir  Hugh)  Pigott.  A 
month  was  spent  in  London  before  em- 
barking, meeting  with  old  friends— Lady 
Louisa  Stuart,  Tom  Moore,  John  Wilson 
Croker,  Sir  David  Wilkie,  and  others.  On 
October  29  the  party,  Scott,  his  son  Walter 
and  wife,  his  daughter  Anne,  and  the  indis- 
185 


FOOTSTEPS      OF      SCOTT 

pensable  John  Nicolson  (Scott's  favourite 
man-servant),  sailed  from  Portsmouth, 
arriving  at  Malta  after  three  weeks  at 
sea,  which  Scott  seems  to  have  enjoyed 
on  the  whole.  When  at  Yaletta  he  was  in- 
spired with  the  idea  of  a  new  novel,  to  be 
entitled  The  Siege  of  Malta,^  and  actually 
began  writing  it  shortly  after  reaching 
Naples.  During  his  stay  in  that  city  he 
nearly  finished  both  this  and  a  shorter 
romance,  II  Bizarro,  "neither  of  which 
will  ever,  I  hope,  see  the  light,"  says  Lock- 
hart.  So  say  all  true  Scott  lovers!  For 
four  months — from  December  17  to  April 
15  —  Sir  Walter  remained  at  Naples,  re- 
siding in  the  Palazzo  Caramanico.  The  pic- 
turesque Bay  appealed  to  him  as  "  one  of 
the  finest  things  I  ever  saw."  Not  a  little 
of  the  scenery  he  compared  to  Scotland — 
to  Edinburgh,  to  the  Eildons,  to  Cauld- 
shiels,  and  to  Abbotsford.  A  peasant's 
lilt  recalled  the  melodies  of  the  Border, 

*  Not,  as  Mr  Andrew  Lang  constantly  says,  The  Knights 
of  Malta.  Curiously  enough,  however,  a  work  under  that 
title  was  published  about  this  same  time. 

186 


THE     LAST     PHASE 

and  pathetically  he  repeated  Jock  o  Hazel- 
dean,  and  his  boyhood's  favourite,  Hardy- 
knute.  At  another  time  Highland  mem- 
ories were  uppermost,  as  he  hummed : 

'*  Up  the  craggy  mountain 
And  down  the  mossy  glen, 
We  canna  gang  a-milkin' 
For  Charlie  and  his  men." 

It  is  doubtful  if  this  Continental  tour 
was  any  good  to  Scott  at  all.  He  took  it 
grudgingly.  A  lady  (Mrs  John  Davy)  who 
saw  much  of  him  at  Malta  says  he  was 
constantly  harking  back  to  Tweedside — 
"my  own  Tweedside" — "which,  in  truth, 
he  seemed  to  lament  ever  having  quitted." 
And  at  Rome  we  know  how  all  the  while 
his  heart  was  at  Abbotsford.  In  the  Casa 
Bernini,  Scott's  headquarters,  the  Italians 
have  shown  their  appreciation  of  his  so- 
journ among  them  and  of  his  distinction  as 
an  author,  by  inserting  a  tablet  under  the 
window^  of  the  room  he  occupied,  bearing 
this  inscription,  to  which,  however,  Scot- 
tish readers  will  take  one  exception : 
187 


FOOTSTEPS      OF      SCOTT 

S.  P.  Q.  R.1 
l'anno  mdcccxxxii 
vltimo  di  sva  vita 

QVESTA   CASA  ABIT6 

l'illvstre  ROMANZIERE  INGLESE 

WALTER  SCOTT 

DA  EDIMBVRGO 
MDCCCLXXXII 

Is  there  in  literature  anything  more 
touching  than  the  unfinished  sentence 
which  closes  Scott's  Journal,  April  16, 1832  ? 
"  We  entered  Rome  by  a  gate  renovated  by 
one  of  the  old  Pontiffs,  but  which  I  forget, 
and  so  paraded  the  streets  by  moonlight 
to  discover,  if  possible,  some  appearance  of 
the  learned  Sir  William  Gell  or  the  pretty 
Miss  Ashley.  At  length  we  found  an  old 
servant  who  guided  us  to  the  lodging  taken 
by  Sir  William  Gell,  where  all  was  com- 
fortable, a  good  fire  included,  which  over- 
fatigue and  the  chilliness  of  the  night  re- 

"In  the  year  1832,  the  last  of  his  life,  the  illustrious 
English  novelist,  Walter  Scott,  of  Edinburgh,  lived  in  this 
house."    The  tablet,  it  may  be  of  interest  to  note,  was  un- 
veiled by  the  Earl  of  Haddington  in  1882. 
188 


THE     LAST     PHASE 

quired.  We  dispersed  as  soon  as  we  had 
taken  some  food,  wine  and  water.  We 
slept  reasonably,  but  on  the  next  morning 

"  Some  interruption  must  have  obliged 

him  to  lay  aside  his  beloved  "  Gurnal " — for 
ever,  as  it  proved.  Its  jagged,  hardly  de- 
cipherable character,  contrasted  with  his 
former  clean  and  clear  caligraphy,  makes 
it  pitiable  in  the  extreme.  What  happened 
next  morning  ?  He  was  in  good  spirits  ap- 
parently, and  along  with  Sir  William  Gell, 
the  great  authority  on  Roman  topography, 
he  saw  the  Stuart  monuments  in  St  Peter's 
and  the  Villa  Muti  at  Frascati,  where  Car- 
dinal York  had  passed  his  later  years. 
Scott  walked  with  difficulty:  "We  con- 
trived to  tie  a  glove  round  the  point  of 
his  stick,  to  prevent  his  slipping  in  some 
degree;  but  to  conduct  him  was  really  a 
service  of  danger  and  alarm,  owing  to  his 
infirmity  and  total  want  of  caution."  The 
glories  of  the  Eternal  City  and  of  Italy 
itself  were  virtually  lost  on  him.  The  ap- 
pearances of  brain  softening,  that  pathetic 
189 


FOOTSTEPS  OF  SCOTT 
appendage  of  prolonged  paralysis,  had  be- 
come only  too  manifest.  And  what  of 
memory  was  still  operative  dwelt  longest 
and  fondest  on  the  home-visions.  "The 
sunny  plains  and  deep  indigo  transparent 
skies  of  Italy  are  all  indifferent  to  the  great 
sick  heart  of  a  Sir  Walter  Scott,"  wrote 
Carlyle ;  "on  the  back  of  the  Apennines,  in 
wild  spring  weather,  the  sight  of  bleak 
Scotch  firs,  and  snow-spotted  heath  and 
desolation,  brings  tears  into  his  eyes." 
When  he  heard  of  the  death  of  Goethe 
(whom  he  had  hoped  to  visit  at  Weimar), 
he  exclaimed,  "  Alas  for  Goethe !  but  he  at 
least  died  at  home.  Let  us  to  Abbotsford." 
On  May  11,  Sir  Walter  left  Rome.  On  the 
17th,  he  passed  the  Apennines  (a  small 
memorial  has  just  been  placed  on  the  spot 
where  the  party  halted).  On  the  19th,  he 
was  at  Venice,  whose  Bridge  of  Sighs  was 
the  sole  object  that  interested  him.  The 
homeward  journey  was  continued  through 
the  Tyrol,  onward  by  Munich,  Ulm,  and 
Heidelberg,  to  Frankfort  and  Mayence, 
190 


THE     LAST     PHASE 

thence  down  the  most  picturesque  part  of 
the  Rhine  as  far  as  Cologne.  At  Mayence, 
a  print  of  Abbotsford  was  shown  to  the 
unrecognised  tourist,  who,  with  a  curt  "I 
know  that  place  already,  sir,"  left  the  shop 
sans  c4r4monie.  At  Nimeguen,  on  June  9,  he 
had  another  apoplectic  attack — the  worst. 
On  the  11th,  he  was  carried  on  board  an 
English  steamboat  at  Rotterdam,  and  on 
the  13th  he  reached  London,  absolutely  ex- 
hausted. For  three  weeks,  within  the  St 
James's  Hotel,  Jermyn  Street  (now  No.  76), 
he  lay  to  all  intents  dead  to  the  world, 
with  only  a  very  occasional  lucid  moment. 
Sir  Henry  Halford  and  Dr  (afterwards 
Sir)  Henry  Holland  were  invited  to  assist 
Dr  Fergusson,  his  customary  medical 
attendant ;  and  all  his  family,  as  well  as 
Cadell  his  publisher,  and  his  old  friend 
John  Richardson,  visited  his  bedside.  He 
woke  up  at  the  sound  of  the  latter's  voice, 
and  made  an  attempt  to  put  forth  his  hand. 
It  dropped  powerless,  and  he  said,  with  a 
smile,  "Excuse  my  hand."  Richardson  made 
191 


FOOTSTEPS  OF  SCOTT 
a  struggle  to  suppress  his  emotion,  and, 
after  a  moment,  got  out  something  about 
Abbotsford  and  the  woods,  which  he  had 
happened  to  see  shortly  before.  Scott's  eye 
brightened.  "How  does  Kirklands  get 
on?"  he  said,  referring  to  Richardson's  new 
estate,  near  Ancrum,  which  Scott  had  left 
him  busied  with.  His  friend  told  him  that 
his  new  house  was  begun,  and  that  the  Mar- 
quis of  Lothian  had  very  kindly  lent  him 
one  of  his  own,  meantime,  in  its  vicinity. 
"Ay!  Lord  Lothian  is  a  good  man,"  said  Sir 
Walter ;  "  he  is  a  man  from  whom  one  may 
receive  a  favour,  and  that's  saying  a  good 
deal  for  any  man  in  these  days."  The 
stupor  then  sank  back  upon  him,  and 
Richardson  never  heard  his  voice  again. 
This  state  of  things  continued  till  the  be- 
ginning of  July,  when  it  was  decided  to  re- 
move him  to  Scotland.  On  the  7th,  Sir 
Walter  was  slung  on  board  the  steamer 
that  was  to  take  him  home.  Two  days  later 
the  James  Watt  reached  Newhaven,  and 
being  still,  as  during  all  the  voyage,  in  a 
192 


THE     LAST     PHASE 

comatose  condition,  he  was  conveyed  to 
the  Douglas  Hotel  in  St  Andrew  Square 
(now  the  offices  of  the  Scottish  Union  and 
National  Insurance  Company),  where  the 
last  two  days  in  his  "  own  romantic  town  " 
were  passed.  At  a  very  early  hour  on  the 
11th,  the  drive  to  Abbotsford  was  begun. 
During  the  first  part  of  the  journey  he  re- 
mained torpid.  At  Gala  Water  the  veil 
lifted  somewhat.  "Gala  Water  surely — 
Buckholm — Torwoodlee,"he  murmured,  as 
the  old  familiar  places  burst  into  view^. 
When  he  saw  the  Eildons, 

"  Three  crests  against  the  saffron  sky," 

and  came  within  hearing  of 

"  The  kiad  remembered  melody 
Of  Tweed  once  more  again," 

he  became  greatly  excited,  and  at  sight  of 
the  Abbotsford  towers,  visible  from  above 
Melrose  Bridge,  he  could  scarcely  be  kept 
in  the  carriage.  Arrived,  he  was  put  to 
bed  in  the  dining-room,  and  after  a  few 
moments,  as  if  trying  to  recollect,  his  eyes 
193  13 


FOOTSTEPS  OF  SCOTT 
fell  on  Laidlaw.  "Ha!  Willie  Laidlaw!" 
he  exclaimed,  "  O  man,  how  often  have  I 
thought  of  youl"  The  next  day  Lockhart 
and  Laidlaw  wheeled  him  about  for  a  time. 
Abbotsf  ord  was  then  looking  its  best,  with 
the  rose-beds  and  gardens  in  full  summer 
bloom.  By  and  by  he  asked  to  be  taken 
through  his  rooms,  and  leisurely  they 
moved  him  for  an  hour  or  more  up  and 
down  the  hall  and  the  library,  where  he 
kept  repeating:  "I  have  seen  much,  but 
nothing  like  my  ain  house — give  me  one 
turn  more."  Next  morning  he  was  still 
better.  After  again  enjoying  the  Bath 
chair  for  perhaps  a  couple  of  hours  out  of 
doors,  he  desired  to  be  drawn  into  the  lib- 
rary and  placed  by  the  fine  central  window, 
that  he  might  look  down  upon  the  Tweed. 
It  was  then  he  expressed  the  wish  that 
Lockhart  should  read  to  him.  When  asked 
from  what  book,  he  answered,  "  Need  you 
ask  ?  There  is  but  one."  "  I  chose  the  four- 
teenth chapter  of  St  John's  Gospel,"  writes 
his  biographer ;  "  he  listened  with  mild  de- 
194 


THE     LAST     PHASE 

votion,  and  said,  when  I  had  done,  '  Well, 
this  is  a  great  comfort;  I  have  followed  you 
distinctly,  and  I  feel  as  if  I  were  yet  to  be 
myself  again.'"  On  another  occasion  he 
requested  to  be  taken  into  his  study  and 
placed  at  his  desk.  When  he  found  himself 
in  the  old  position,  he  smiled  and  said, 
"  Now  give  me  my  pen,  and  leave  me  for  a 
little  to  myself."  "  Sophia,"  Lockhart  goes 
on  to  say,  "  put  the  pen  into  his  hand,  and 
he  endeavoured  to  close  his  fingers  upon 
it,  but  they  refused  their  office — it  dropped 
on  the  paper.  He  sank  back  among  his 
pillows,  silent  tears  rolling  down  his 
cheeks ;  but  composing  himself  by  and 
by,  motioned  to  me  to  wheel  him  out  of 
doors  again.  Laidlaw  met  us  at  the  porch 
and  took  his  turn  of  the  chair.  Sir  Walter 
after  a  little  w^hile  again  dropt  into  slumber. 
When  he  was  awaking,  Laidlaw  said  to  me, 
'Sir  Walter  has  had  a  little  repose.'  'No, 
Willie,'  said  he,  '  no  repose  for  Sir  Walter 
but  in  the  grave.'  The  tears  again  rushed 
from  his  eyes.  'Friends,'  said  he,  'don't  let 
195 


FOOTSTEPS  OF  SCOTT 
me  expose  myself;  get  me  to  bed,  that's  the 
only  place.'"  After  that  he  scarcely  ever 
left  it,  although  his  great  strength  enabled 
him  to  hold  out  for  two  months  longer. 
During  those  last  weeks,  his  mind,  wan- 
dering mostly,  appeared  to  dwell,  with  rare 
exceptions,  on  serious  and  solemn  things. 
Sometimes  he  was  the  Shirra,  administer- 
ing justice,  anon  he  was  giving  Tom  Purdie 
orders  anent  trees.  Then  he  would  be 
heard  muttering  snatches  from  Isaiah  and 
Job,  from  the  Dies  Irae  and  Stabat  Mater, 
or  the  grand  old  Scottish  Psalm  Book.  On 
the  17th  September,  he  had  one  of  his  last 
intervals  of  consciousness,  when  he  ad- 
dressed those  impressive  and  stately  words 
to  his  son-in-law :  "  Lockhart,  I  may  have 
but  a  minute  to  speak  to  you.  My  dear, 
be  a  good  man,  be  virtuous,  be  religious, 
be  a  good  man.  Nothing  else  will  give  you 
any  comfort  when  you  come  to  lie  here." 
"  He  paused,"  says  Lockhart,  "  and  I  said, 
'  Shall  I  send  for  Sophia  and  Anne  ? '  '  No,' 
said  he,  'don't  disturb  them.  Poor  souls  ! 
196 


THE     LAST     PHASE 

I  know  they  were  up  all  night.  God  bless 
you  all.'  With  this  he  sank  into  a  very 
tranquil  sleep."  About  half-past  one  p.m. 
on  September  21  the  end  came,  and  Sir 
Walter  Scott  breathed  his  last,  in  the 
presence  of  all  his  children.  "It  was  a 
beautiful  day,  so  warm  that  every  win- 
dow was  wide  open,  and  so  perfectly 
still  that  the  sound  of  all  others  most 
delicious  to  his  ear,  the  gentle  ripple  of 
the  Tweed  over  its  pebbles,  was  distinct- 
ly audible  as  we  knelt  around  the  bed, 
and  his  eldest  son  kissed  and  closed  his 
eyes." 

He  died  one  month  and  six  days  after 
completing  his  61st  year.  He  lived  just  a 
year — but  a  year  of  gradual  dying — beyond 
his  calculation. 

On  the  26th,  Sir  Walter  was  buried  at 
Dry  burgh,  no  resting-place  more  beautiful, 
though  Melrose  were  perhaps  a  more  ap- 
propriate in  Scott's  case.  But  it  was  his 
wish — as  it  was  his  right — to  lie  with  kin- 
dred dust  in  the  ancient  sepulchre  of  the 
197 


FOOTSTEPS  OF  SCOTT 
Haliburtons.  So  the  long  procession  moved 
out  from  Abbotsford  on  that  last  of  all 
journeys.  The  very  elements  seemed  to 
strive  together  in  sympathy : 

"  There  was  wailing  on  the  autumn  breeze  and  darkness 
in  the  sky, 
When,  with  sable  plume,  and   cloak,  and  pall,  his 
funeral  train  swept  by." 

Throughout  the  route— almost  a  dozen 
miles — the  tokens  of  public  sorrow  were 
abundant.  What  pathos  in  that  last  cross- 
ing of  the  Tweed  at  Leaderfoot!  On  the 
brow  of  Bemersyde  Hill— Scott's  favourite 
view,  where  he  was  accustomed  to  halt 
his  carriage  for  a  little — the  cortege  paus- 
ed for  a  minute  or  two,  accidentally,  as 
Lockhart  thinks.  Which  may  be;  but  when 
it  is  recalled  that  one  of  the  horses  in  the 
hearse  was  Scott's  own,  and  must  have 
borne  him  hither  many  a  time,  the  ex- 
planation is  easy.  At  about  half -past  five 
the  Abbey  precincts  were  entered,  when 
Peter  Mathieson — frail  now — with  Laidlaw 
and  others  of  the  Abbotsford  servants,  past 
198 


DRYBURGH   ABBEY 

Fr07n  a  zvater-colour  draiuing  by 
TOM  SCOTT,   R.S.A. 


•'  We  have  nothing  left  of  Dryburgh,  although  my  father s 
maternal  inheritance,  but  the  right  of  stretching  our  bones  where 
viine  may  perhaps  be  laid  ere  atiy  eye  but  7ny  own  glances  over 
these  pages. " 

SCOTT. 


THE     LAST     PHASE 

and  present,  carried  the  plain  black  coffin 
to  the  red  earth  prepared  for  it  within  St 
Mary's  Aisle.  The  pall-bearers  were  his 
two  sons,  his  son-in-law,  and  six  other  rela- 
tives, the  Rev.  John  Williams  (who  had 
been  tutor  to  Charles  Scott)  reciting  the 
solemn,  but  comforting  and  reassuring, 
words  of  the  English  burial-service.  With 
Sir  Walter  at  Dryburgh  sleep  his  wife  and 
the  eldest  son,  who  was  as  the  very  apple 
of  his  eyes,  and  his  wife,  and  "at  the  feet" 
of  the  King  of  the  Romantics  ("where  he 
longed  to  be")  John  Gibson  Lockhart,  his 
"biographer  and  friend" — one  of  the  pur- 
est, most  gentle,  most  misunderstood  souls 
this  world  has  seen,  through  whose  genius 
posterity  has  learned  to  know  and  to  love 
another  no  less  pure,  no  less  good. 

When  Scott  died,  the  hard-won  victory 
was  in  sight.  At  1832  the  debt  had  been 
diminished  by  £66,000  —  an  average  of 
£11,000  a  year.  Against  the  remainder  a 
sum  of  £22,000  was  received  from  his  life 
insurance,  and  a  generous  advance  from 
199 


FOOTSTEPS      OF      SCOTT 

Cadell  (Constable's  son-in-law,  and  latterly 
Scott's  publisher)  enabled  his  executors  to 
settle  in  full  with  the  Ballantyne  creditors. 
By  1847  the  loan  was  reduced  to  one-half, 
and  the  mortgage  on  Abbotsf  ord  to  £8500. 
On  May  11, 1847,  Lockhart  writes: — "I  have 
finally  settled  all  our  Sir  Walter's  affairs. 
There  remained  debt  on  the  lands  £8500,  to 
Cadell  £16,000,  and  sundries  £1000.  I  have 
taken  the  £1000  on  myself,  and  Cadell  ob- 
literates the  £24,500  on  condition  of  getting 
the  whole  remaining  copyright  of  Scott's 
works,  and  also  of  the  Life."  Had  Scott 
lived,  he  would  himself  have  paid  off — and 
soon — every  farthing  of  debt.  As  it  is,  it 
was  really  his  own  hand  which  "worked  it 
off,"  in  that  almost  superhuman  effort 
which  cost  him  his  life,  but  has  rendered 
his  name  unstained  and  honourable  for 
ever.  There  are  none  to  whom  the  words 
of  Sir  William  Stirling  Maxwell  will  not 
come  with  a  deep  personal  appeal :  "  I  never 
take  down  a  volume  of  Scott's  writings 
published  in  or  after  1826  without  thinking 
200 


THE     LAST     PHASE 

of  the  circumstances  in  which  they  were 
composed,  and  remembering  that  they, 
like  the  water  from  the  well  of  Bethlehem 
which  David  refused  to  drink,  represent 
the  heart's  blood  of  a  brave  man's  life." 


CHAPTER  VIII 

SCOTT  TO-DAY 

What  of  Walter  Scott  to-day?  Stands 
Scott  where  he  did  ?  In  other  words,  does 
he  continue  to  keep  his  place  as  "out  and 
away  the  King  of  the  Romantics?" — to  use 
the  happy  phrase  of  Robert  Louis  Steven- 
son, Scott's  twin-brother  in  the  art  of  fic- 
tion-making. Is  Scott  read  as  much  as  he 
was?  Or  is  it  true,  as  has  been  stated,  that 
the  Scott  vogue  has  come  to  its  decline? 
At  once  we  answer  emphatically:  Scott ^s 
read  as  much  as  ever.  In  the  output  of 
Scott  literature  there  is  no  diminution;  and 
lovers  of  Scott  are  still  in  the  ascendant. 
A  few  London  librarians  have  maintained 
to  the  contrary,  but  London  does  not  ex- 
haust the  scope  of  evidence.  For  even  Lon- 
don is  hardly  the  hub  of  the  Scott-reading 
world.  A  plebiscite  (were  that  possible) 
202 


SCOTT  T  0-D  A  Y 
of  the  English-speaking  countries  would 
reveal  an  altogether  different  state  of 
affairs.  At  home,  there  is  not  the  slightest 
doubt  that  Scott  is  read  more  than  ever, 
notwithstanding  the  enormous  increase 
both  in  the  writing  and  reading  of  fiction. 
The  libraries  are  not  nowadays  a  true  test 
in  this  matter.  In  Canada  and  the  United 
States,  however,  the  present  writer  (inter- 
viewing the  keepers  of  some  of  the  great 
libraries)  found  that  almost  without  ex- 
ception Scott  heads  their  lists  of  fiction. 
The  same  thing  holds  good  in  Australia 
and  New  Zealand.  And  in  the  purely  rural 
libraries  of  Scotland,  Scott  has  easily  the 
premier  place.  In  the  writer's  own  district 
a  smaU  library  was  begun  a  few  years 
since,  when  on  the  opening  night  no  fewer 
than  seven  of  the  Waverleys  were  called 
for,  the  very  first  volume  to  be  taken  out 
being  the  Tales  of  a  Grandfather.  This, 
too,  in  a  parish  with  a  population  of  only 
200,  and  where  novel-reading  has  been  un- 
der prejudice  for  years! 
203 


FOOTSTEPS      OF      SCOTT 

But  is  not  the  best  answer  to  be  found 
in  the  extraordinary  creativeness  of  the 
press  in  the  shape  of  Scott  literature 
generally?  Take  the  novels  themselves. 
Never,  not  even  in  Scott's  time,  were  there 
so  many  of  the  Waverleys  in  circulation. 
Edition  after  edition  has  been  poured  forth 
in  a  continuous  stream  year  after  year, 
and  the  cry  is  "still  they  come."  Messrs 
A.  &  C.  Black,  of  London,  the  well-known 
publishers  of  Scott's  works  (who  possess 
the  author's  original  of  the  Magnum  Opus, 
from  which  all  their  copies  are  printed), 
have  issued  no  fewer  than  fourteen  differ- 
ent editions  of  the  novels;  and  other  pub- 
lishers (notably  Mr  Dent),  if  not  so  pro- 
lific, have  done  much  to  popularise  Scott 
still  more  by  means  of  the  surprisingly 
cheap  issues  now  on  the  market.  That  one 
may  purchase  any  of  Scott's  works  for  a 
shilling,  in  binding  and  type  that  nobody 
needs  to  be  ashamed  of,  is  one  of  the  mar- 
vels of  this  age  of  marvels.  For  a  sixpence, 
even  the  very  poorest  may  be  the  pos- 
204 


SCOTT      T  0-D  A  Y 

sessor  of  his  own  Scott,  in  perfectly  read- 
able and  acceptable  reprints,  albeit  paper- 
covered.  It  is  just  here,  indeed,  that  the 
library  argument  breaks  down.  For  one 
who  borrows  Scott  from  the  libraries,  at 
least  a  score  buy  him  at  the  booksellers'. 
With  most  circulating  libraries,  modern 
fiction  (the  six-shilling  novel)  is  the  prin- 
cipal item.  But  Scott,  having  long  passed 
the  six-shilling  stage,  takes  his  place  as 
a  perennial  favourite  among  books  that 
are  the  companions  of  the  people. 

There  is  to  be  remarked,  too,  the  un- 
wonted popularity  of  Scott  as  a  school 
classic.  It  is  an  agreeable  feature  of  the 
times  to  find  the  Waverleys  so  much  in  use 
in  the  common  day-schools  of  our  own 
country,  as  well  as  throughout  Canada 
(where  the  practice  has  been  in  operation 
for  years)  and  in  Australia.  In  the  United 
States  the  most  ordinary  schoolboy  will 
pass  a  wonderfully  searching  examination 
on  the  whole  subject  of  Scott. 

How  many  publications  specially  associ- 
205 


FOOTSTEPS      OF      SCOTT 

ated  with  Scott  have  been  given  to  the 
world  within  recent  years !  Of  fresh  Lives 
of  Scott,  for  instance,  two  of  the  best — Mr 
Lang's  and  Mr  Norgate's — have  appeared 
within  a  twelvemonth,  and  of  other  Scott 
volumes  more  than  a  dozen  have  been  pre- 
sented to  the  public  within  that  same 
period — among  them  being  Mrs  Hughes's 
Recollections  of  Sir  Walter  Scott ;  Letters 
by  Members  of  Scott's  Family  to  their  Old 
Governess,  edited  by  the  Warden  of  Wad- 
ham  College,  Oxford;  Fyfe's  Edinburgh 
under  Sir  Walter  Scott ;  and  The  Waverley 
Novels,  by  Charles  Alexander  Young — a 
singularly  able  piece  of  criticism.  How 
many  articles  in  the  journals  of  the  day  are 
devoted  both  to  Scott  himself  and  to  topics 
which  his  name  suggests !  How  many  refer- 
ences in  the  daily  newspapers  to  surviving 
associations  and  living  links  with  Scott ! 

The  increasing  number  of  Scott  Clubs 
all  over  the  world  is  not  without  its  own 
evidence  that  the  spell  of  the  Magician 
remains  unbroken. 

206 


SCOTT      T  0-D  A  Y 

It  may  be  said  that  in  all  this  there  is 
no  concrete  proof.  Though  Scott  has  not 
escaped  the  statistical  juggler,  it  is  difficult 
— hopeless  indeed — to  tabulate  the  number 
of  volumes  which  have  been  in  the  market. 
In  the  first  twenty-five  years  after  Scott's 
death  these  were  sold  to  the  startling 
figure  of  7,967,369.  In  the  half -century  that 
has  since  passed,  it  is  not  too  much  to  say 
that  the  output  from  all  sources  must  have 
been  fully  double  that  quantity.  Then, 
there  was  only  one  firm  handling  Scott's 
works;  to-day  there  are  many  firms. 
Messrs  Black  send  the  following,  which 
seems  to  sum  up  the  situation:  "According 
to  our  printing  accounts  the  sale  of  Scott's 
novels  increases  year  by  year,  and  during 
the  last  five  years  this  increase  has  been 
specially  notable.  The  Poems,  we  should 
say,  are  not  so  much  read  by  the  public, 
though  they  are  used  to  a  considerable 
extent  as  school-readers.  The  circulation 
of  the  Life  is  small,  but  it  is  to  be  noted 
that  three  other  publishers  have  recently 
207 


FOOTSTEPS      OF      SCOTT 

issued  editions.  It  is  perhaps  also  worthy 
of  note  that  Mr  S.  R.  Crockett's  Red  Cap 
Tales:  Stolen  from  the  Treasu7'e  Chest  of  the 
Wizai'd  of  the  North  was  a  great  success, 
and  the  author  is  engaged  on  a  second 
volume." 

One  regrets  that  there  should  be  such  a 
falling  off  so  far  as  Lockhart's  masterpiece 
is  concerned.  But  the  work  is  really  too 
cumbrous  for  ordinary  purposes,  though, 
of  course,  the  true  Scott  enthusiast  wants 
to  read  every  word  about  his  hero.  At 
the  same  time  it  seems  a  pity  that  such 
a  notable  biography — the  noblest  in  the 
language,  Mr  Saintsbury  thinks,  with  all 
deference  to  Boswell — should  remain  so 
much  unread.  What  is  needed  to  create 
fresh  interest  in  the  work  is  an  up-to-date 
annotated  edition,  such  as  will  give  to 
Lockhart  a  new  lease  of  life,  and  secure  for 
Scott  (if  that  be  possible)  a  deeper  meed  of 
affection  from  his  countrymen  all  over  the 
globe;  and  from  generous  hearts  every 
where,  who  have  long  claimed  "  the  good 
208 


SCOTT      T  0-D  A  Y 

Sir  Walter"  as  their  own.  Meantime,  Scott 
keeps  his  pedestal,  and  the  day  of  his  de- 
thronement no  one  dreams  of  seeing. 

The  centuries  to  come  are  not  likely  to 
see  any  more  potent  figure  in  the  realm 
of  romantic  literature.  With  Shakespeare 
and  Burns,  Scott's  place  is  surely  among  the 
unapproachables — a  Mont  Blanc  in  his  own 
sphere.  To  him  there  has  come  no  real  suc- 
cessor. Stevenson,  to  be  sure,  is  a  more 
consummate  artist,  a  more  skilful  manip- 
ulator of  words.  But  it  is  the  story  no  less 
than  the  "play"  that  touches  the  hearts  of 
the  people.  Here  Scott  reigns  supreme.  For 
one  who  understands  and  appreciates  style, 
there  are  ninety-nine  who  do  not,  but  are 
yet  led  captive  by  a  well-told  tale.  And  all 
understand  Scott.  He  has  something  for 
all;  and  none  can  read  him  without  better- 
ment. 

Scott's  gospel  was  to  make  men  happy ; 

and  who,  in  his  particular  fashion,  ever  did 

so  much  in  that  direction  ?    If  Literature 

had  no  object,  as  Carlyle  suggests,  but  that 

J^09  14 


FOOTSTEPS  OF  SCOTT 
of  harmless  amusement,  then  here  was  the 
perfection  of  Literature:  "here,  more  em- 
phatically than  ever  elsewhere,  might  a 
man  fling  himself  back,  exclaiming,  'Be 
mine  to  lie  on  this  sofa  and  read  everlast- 
ing Novels  of  Walter  Scott.'"  But  there  is 
more  than  amusement  to  be  derived  from 
these  entrancing  romances.  They  stimu- 
late; they  instruct;  they  soothe;  and  be- 
cause of  their  strong  creative  sympathies, 
they  are  not  least  among  life's  sweeteners. 
Hence,  to  hint  at  the  decline  of  Scott  would 
be  to  predict  the  degeneracy  of  man :  to  im- 
agine a  time  when  man  should  have  no  eye 
for  the  beautiful  things  around  him;  no 
heart  for  the  joys  and  the  sorrows  of  the 
race;  no  soul  to  despise  things  that  were 
mean,  or  uphold  things  that  were  noble. 


INDEX 


Abbot,  The,  133 

Abhotsford,  6,  8,  79-101,  107, 

147 
study,     88 ;     library,     90 ; 

drawiug-room,    91 ;      ar- 

motiry,  91  ;  entrance-hall, 

93  ;  dining-room,  94,  185, 

187,  193,  200 
Abbotsford  Kolanda,  163 
Abercom,  letter  to  Lady,  62 
Absentee,  The,  4 
Abud,  180 
Adam,  Rector,  28 
Aidan,  St,  168 
Aix,  4 
Alexander  II.,  159  ;  queeu  of, 

159 
Alexius,  Alexander  (quoted), 

13 
Alloway,  148 
Altrive,  49 

Alvanley,  Lady,  letter  to,  84 
America,  4 
Ancrum,  192 

Anne  of  Geierstein,  4,  142 
Antiquary,  The,  27,  112-115 
Apennines,  190 
Arbroath,  113 
Argyll,  Duke  of,  125 
Ashestiel,  6, 53-77, 79, 102, 143 
"Ashton,  Lady,"  129  w. 
"Ashton,  Lucy,"  129 
Auchendinny,  40 
Auchmithie,  113 
Auld  Maitland,  45 
Australia,  203 
"Avenel,  Castle,"  132 
Ayr,  148 


Bacon,  Roger,  160 

Baillie,  Grisell,  167 

"  Balderstone,     Caleb,"    129, 

141 
"  Baliol,  Mrs  Bethune,"  141 
Ballantynes,  the,  30,  76,  104, 

177 
Balnagowan,  49 
Batavia,  51 
Bath,  27 

"  Beardie,"  24,  90 
Bell,  James,  8  n.,  52 
Belsches,    Miss,   ancestry    of, 

34 
Bemersyde,  151,  167,  198 
Benbscula,  2 
Benger,  Mount,  49 
Berwick,  Liberties  of,  1 
Betrothed,  The,  3,  140 
Biddlestone,  122 
Biggar,  143 
Birkhill,  172 
Black  Dwarf,  The,  112,  117- 

121 
Black,  Dr  Joseph,  14 

Messrs,  116,  204 
Blackhouse,  44,  171 
Blair- Adam,  133 
Boisil,  St,  168 
Borderland,  Welsh,  3 
Boswell,  14 
Bower,  Johnny,  146 
Bowhill,  170 
Branksome,  72 
"Brenda,"2 
Brewster,  Sir  D.,  162 
Bridal  of  Triermain,  The,  105 


211 


INDEX 


Bride  of  Lamm^mioor,    The, 

49,  '123,  135 
Bride's,  Saint,  Kirk,  Douglas, 

143 
"  Bridgenorth,  Alice,"  3 
"  Bridgenorth,  Major,"  4 
Broad  meadows,  170 
Bruce,  Robert  the,  152 ;  heart 

of,  159 
"Brydone,"  surname  of,  132 
Buccleuch,  Duke  of,  41,  53,  64, 

151 
Buchaii,  Farl  of,  168 
Buckholm,  193 
"Bucklaw,"  129  n. 
Banyan,  Scott  reads,  28 
Biirue  the  Violer,  72 
Burns,  Robert,  30,  73,  180 
Byron,  Lord,  71,  117 

Cadell,  the  publisher,  98,  191, 

199 
Caddonfoot,  63 
Cadyow  Castle,  40 
Caerlanrig,  110 
Caerlaverock  Castle,  109 

churchyard,  116 
Canada,  203 

"Captain"  (Scott's  horse),  61 
"Cargill,  Josinh,"  52,  137 
Carlisle,  35,  106 
Carlyle  (quoted),  18,  92,  190 
Carpenter,  Miss,  ancestry  of, 
36,91 

Scott  marries,  35 
Carruthers,  Robert,  163 
Cartley  Hole,  83 
Castle  Dangerous,  143 
Castle  Rackrent,  4 
Canldshiels,  Loch,  95,  186 
Cervantes,  19 

Chamber,  The  Tapestried,  142 
Chambers,  Robert,  107 

William,  32,  119,  121 
Chantrey  bust  of  Scott,  90 
Chapelhope,  172 
Charlie,  Prince,  25 
"  Charlieshope,"  111 
Chase,  The,  39 


Chiefswood,  95 
Chillingham,  122 
"Christie,  John,"  136 
Chronicles  of  t/ie  Canongate, 

141 
Cistercians,  the,  148 
Clarkson,  Dr  Elienezer,  142 
"Clarty  Hole,"83 
Claverhouse.  92,  139 
Cleghorn,  Eliott  Lockhart  of, 

143 
"Cleikuminn,  The,"137 
Clerk,  Will,  33,  40 
"Cliuthill,"  132 
Closeburn,  115 
"  Clutterbuck,  Captain,"  132, 

154 
Cockburn,  Mrs,  of  Fairnalee, 

82  w. 
Cokburne's  grave,  172 
Coldstream,  60 
Collins,  Wilkie,  108 
Colrnslie,  132 
Cologne,  191 
Constable,  the  publisher,  33, 

75,  104, 121,  140,  177 
George,  27,  114 
Constantinople,  4 
Contin,  49 

"  Corri-nan-shian,"  132 
Cmint  Robert  of  Paris,  4, 143 
Cowdenknowes,  167 
Cowper's  Sofa,  69 
Craignethan,  117 
Cranstoun,  Jane  Anne,  123 
Creetown,  109 
Croal,  George,  8  n. 
Crockett,  S.  R.,  208 
"Croftangrv,  Chrystal,"  141 
Croker,  J.  W,  185 
Cromwell,  Oliver,  152 
Crook  Inn,  The,  138 
"Cuddie  Headrigg,"  116 
Cummertrees,  138 
Cuthbert,  St,  151,  168 

"  Dalgarno,"  135 

"  Dalgetty,  Dugald,"  27,  130 

Dalkeith,  Countess  of,  69 


212 


INDEX 


Dalkeith  House,  41 

Dairy  mple,  Janet,  of  Stair, 
129 

Dalziel  of  Binns,  24 

Darnick,  96 

David,  the  "Sair  Sauct,"  151 

Davidson,  Andrew,  129 

"Dean,  Fairy,  the,"  132 

"Deans,  Effie,"  125 

"  Deans,  Jeanie,"  125 

Death  of  the  Laird's  Jock,  142 

Deloraine,  72,  134,  149 

Denholm,  45 

"Deunison,  Jenny,"  117 

Dent,  Mr  J.  M.,  204 

Denton,  112 

Derbyshire,  3 

Devil's  Beef  Tub,  the,  138 

Dick's  Cleuch,  95 

Dickens  at  Abbotsford,  94 

Dingwall,  49 

"Dinniont,  Dandie,"  111 

"Dirk  Hatteraick,"  111 

Don  Quixote,  19 

Don  Roderick,  4,  77,  105 

"Doolittle,  Captain,"  133 

Douglas  and  Percy  (grey- 
hounds), 59 

Douglas,  Castle,  143 

Douglas,  Dr  Kobert,  82 

Douglas  Tragedy,  The,  171 

Douglasdale,  143 

Dow  Glen,  the,  172 

Dowie  Dens,  ballad,  170 

Drochil,  Castle,  143 

Drovers,  The  Two,  142 

Dryburgh,  6, 152  n.,  197 

Drvhope,  171 

Dublin,  118 

Dunbar,  David,  of  Baldoon, 
129 

Duncan,  Rev.  Dr,  137 

Dunnottar,  116 

Duuscore,  139 

Earlston,  25,  111,  165 

Edgeworth,  Maria,  4 

"  Edie  Ochiltree,"  114 

Edinburgh,  Scott's  feelings 
towards,  9;   High  Street 


and  Canongate,  9,  141  ; 
Marmion  lines  on,  10 ; 
Parliament  House,  11  ;  39 
Castle  Street,  11,  37,  102, 
140 ;  Mound,  11 ;  Cow- 
gate,  13;  Holyrood,  13, 
141 ;  Alexius  quoted,  13  ; 
Scott's  birthplace  in,  14  ; 
inscription  at  Chambers 
Street,  15 ;  condition  of 
the  College  Wynd,  16 
city  improvements,  16 
the  Luckenbooths,  16 
the  Scotts  remove  to 
George  Square,  17  ;  High 
School,  13,  28;  College, 
30  ;  Sciennes  Hill  House, 
30 ;  Parliameut  Square, 
33;  George  Street,  37; 
Cross,  88;  Tolbooth,  88, 
94,  127  ;  Grassmarket, 
127;  Muschat's  Cairn,  127; 
St  Anthony's  Chapel,  127; 
Salisbury  Crags,  127 ; 
Arthur's  Seat,  127  ;  Doug- 
las Hotel,  193;  Fyfe's 
Edinburgh,  206 

Edinburgh  Houses,  Scott's,  37 

Edinburgh  Revieio,  The,  76 

Eildons,    the,    83,    136,    147, 
160,  186,  193 

Eldinhope,  49 

Elibauk,  58,  143 

Elizabeth,  Queen,  89,  133 

"  Ellangowan,"  108 

"Ellieslaw,"121 

Elwyn,  Water  of,  132 

"Engaddi,"  38 

Ercildoune,  165 

Erskine,  Ralph,  93 
Will,  103 

Ethie,  Castle,  113 

Ettrick,  44,  58,  95,  107,  134, 
169 

Ettrickfoot,  58 

"  Evandale,  Lord,"  117 

Eve  of  St  John,  The.  26,  39, 


Evers  and  Latoun,  159 


213 


15 


INDEX 


"Ewart,  Nanty,"  139 
Eyemouth,  129 

Fair  Maid  of  Perth,  The,  142 

"  Fairfords,  the,"  16,  138 

Fairnalee,  63,  82 

"Fairport,"  113 

"  Fairservice,  Andrew,"  123 

Faldonside,  96 

"Falstaff,"27,  81 

Familiar  Letters  (quoted),  61 -2 

Fast  Castle,  129 

Ferguson,  Adam,  31,  96,  146 

Fergusson,  Dr,  191 

"  Fitful  Head,  Noma  of  the,"  2 

Flodden,  30,  73 

Floors  Castle,  29 

Flowers  of  the  Forest,  The,  48, 

82 
Fontenoy,  114 
Forbes,  Lord,  106 
Forbes,  Sir  William,  34,  180 
Fordel,  146 

Fortunes  of  Nigel,  The,  3, 128 
Foulshiels,  67,  170 
Fox,  Charles,  71 
"  Frank  Osbaldistone,"  35 
Frankfort,  190 
Eraser,  Luke,  28 
"  Frew,  Fords  of,"  35 
Fyfe's  Edinburgh  under  Scott, 

206 

Gala,  The,  81,87,193 
Galashiels,  68,  82 
Galloway,  108,  116 
Gameshope,  117 
"  Gandercleuch,"  38 
Garvald,  121 
Gatehouse-of-Fleet,  109 
Gattonside,  159,  163 
Gay  Goss-Hawk,  The,  171 
"  Geddes,  Joshua,"  138 
"Geddes,  Rachel,"  138 
Gell,  Sir  William,  188 
"Gellatley,  Davie,"  107 
Gemmels,  Andrew,  114 
"George   Inn,"  Melrose,  the, 


Gessner,  Scott  reads,  28 
Giltillan,  George,  108 
Gilmauscleuch,  107 
"  Gilpin,  Horner,"  69 
Gilsland,  36,111,117,  137 
Glen,  The  (Traquair),  48 
"Glendearg,"  132 
"  Glendinning,"   surname    of, 

132 
Glenfinlas,  39 
Goethe,  190 

Goetz  of  Berlichingen,  39 
Golden  Horn,  The,  5 
Goldie,  Mrs,  125 
Goldielands,  121 
Goldsmith,  Oliver,  14 
Gordon  Arms,  Yarrow,  50 
Gordon,  Jean,  110 
Gray  Brother,  The,  39 
Gray,  Daft  Jock,  107 
"Gray,  Dr  Gideon,"  142 
"Gray,  Menie,"  4 
Gratz,  Miss,  131 
Greenshields's  statuette,  92 
Grey  Mare's  Tail,  the,  172 
Grierson  of  Lag,  139 
Guthrie,  Dr  Thomas,  14  ^ 
Guy  Manner ing,  2, 47, 107-12 

Haddington,  Earl  of,  188 
Haigs  of  Beniersyde,  168 
"  Hal  o'  the  Wynd,"  142 
Halford,  Sir  H.,  191 
Haliburton,  Barbara,  20 
Hall,  Basil,  96,  123 
Hallyards,  117 
Hamilton  of  Bothwellhaugh, 

story  of,  40 
Hangingshaw,  170 
"  Happer,"  surname  of,  132 
Happrew,  Easter,  120  n. 
Harden,  56 

Scotts  of,  24 
Hardyknute,  21,  187 
"  Hatteraick,  Dirk,"  111 
Hawick,  115,  185 
Hawthornden,  38 

Drummoud  of,  38 
"Headrigg,  Cuddie,"  116 


214 


INDEX 


Heart    of    Midlothian,    The, 

124-7 
Hebrides,  the,  2 
Heidelberg,  190 
Heitou,  John,  96 
Henderland,  172 

Lord,  14 
Heriot,  George,  135 
Hermitage,  94 

Hertford  destroys  Melrose,  152 
"Heughfoot,"  121 
Hillslap,  132 

Hindlee,  Davidson  of,  111 
Hoddom  Castle,  138 
Hogg,  James,  44,  48,  66,  173 

songs,  50 
Hogg's  mother,  Scott  and,  45 
Holland,  Sir  H.,  191 
Holy  Land,  the,  4 
Holylee,  63 
Homer,  Scott  reads,  28 
Hope  Scott,  Mr,  85,  88,  100 
Hospitalfield,  114 
Hotspur,  27 
Hoy,  Stone  of,  5,  134 
Hughes's,  Mrs,  Recollections, 

206 
Huntlyburn,  96,  146 
Hurst,   Robinson,    failure    of, 

177 

II  Bizarro,  4,  186 

In  Memoriam,  108 

India,  142 

Innerleithen,  63,  69,  137,  143 

Invernahyle,  Stuart  of,  30 

Inversnaid,  122 

Ireland,  4 

Irongray,  churchyard  of,  126 

Irving,   Washington,   96,  114, 

131 
Isle  of  Man,  3,  108 
Italy,  4 
Ivanhoe,  3,  128,  130 

James  VI.,  King,  135 
"  Jarvie,  Bailie  Nicol,"  123 
Java,  51 
Jed,  the,  151 


Jedburgh,  169 
Jedburgh  Abbey,  151  n. 
Jeffrey,  Francis,  73,  75,  77 
Jobson,  Miss,  178 
Jock  o'  Ilazeldean,  187 
Johnson,  Dr,  14,  179 
Jones,  Paul,  139 
Jonson,  Ben,  38 
Jordan,  the,  5 
Journal,  Scott's,  178, 188-9 

Kaeside,  96,  146,  163 
Katrine,  Loch,  77 
Keble,  Rev.  John,  35 
Keepsake,  The,  142 
Keith,  Mrs  Murray,  142 
Kelso,  6,  25,  27,  29,114,152  m. 

life,  Scott's,  27-30 
Kemp,     architect     of     Scott 

Monument,  11 
Kenihuorth,  3,  133 
"  Kennaquhair,"  132 
Kinross,  133 
Kirk  of  St  Marv,  171 
Kirklands,  192" 
"  Kuockwinnock,"  113 
Knox,  John,  161 
Kyle,  "  David,"  133 

Lady  of  the  Lake,  The,  77 
Laidlaw,  William,  44,  48,  96, 

111,  146,  194 
Laidlawstiel,  63 
Lalla  liookh,  146 
Lament  of  the  Border  Widow, 

The,  172 
Landor,  Walter  Savage,  124 
Lang,  Mr  Andrew,  139,  186  n. 
Langhorne,  John,  32 
Langshaw,  132 
Lasswade,  6,  37,  70 
"Latimer,  Darsie,"  16,  138 
Lawson,  Rev.  Dr,  137 
Lay  of  the  Last  Minstrel,  The, 

69-73,  102,  131,  149 
Leader,  the,  165 
Leaderfoot,  198 
Leadhills,  110 
"Lee,  Alice,"  100 


21i 


INDEX 


Legend  of  Montrose,  The,  130 

Lessuddeu  House,  168 

Leveu,  Loch,  133 

Lewiushope,  111.  170 

Leyden,  John,  45,  50-2,  61,  81 
Scenes  of  Infancy,  45  ;  Bal- 
lads, 46 

Lindisfarne,  151 

Littledean,  168 

"  Littlejohn,  Hugh,"  95 

Loch,  St  Mary's,  74,  171 

"  Lochan,  the,"  of  The  Abbot, 
26 

Lochside,  132 

Lockhart, Charlotte  (Mrs  Hope 
Scott),  100 
John  Gibson,  13,  19,  23,  43, 
47,   57,    59,    72,    83  ;    at 
Chiefswood,  95  ;  his  nov- 
els, 95  ;    his  family,  100, 
104,   115,   127,  143,  146, 
176,    183;    reads    to    the 
dying    Sir    Walter,    194, 
196, 199,  200 
Sophia  (Mrs),  95,  100,  195 
Violet.  183 
Walter  Scott,  100 

London,  Scott's,  3,  136,  191 

Lord  of  the  Isles,  The,  52,  77 

Lothian,  Marquis  of,  192 

Lowes,  Loch  of  the,  172 

Lucy's  Flittin',  48 

Makdougall,    Sir  George,   19, 

169 
MacGregor,  Helen,  123,  136 
Mac-Ivor,  Fergus,  106 
Mackenzie,  Henry,  40 
Maida,  88 

Makerstoun,  19,  169 
"  Malagrowther,  Sir  Mungo," 

135 
Malta,  186 

Malta,  The  Siege  of  186 
"  Mannering,  Colonel,"  111 
"Mannering,  Julia,"  111 
Manor,  121 
March,  Earl  of,  137 
"  March  thorn,"  137 


Marmion,  9,   19,  21,  26,  58, 

73-76,  173 
Mary,  Queen,  91 ,  92,  133 
Mathieson,  James,  185 

Peter,  66,  92,  198 
Maxwell,  Sir  W.  S..  200 
Mayence,  190 
Meogetdale,  172 
Mellerstaiu,  167 
Melrose,  6,  131,  137,  146-65, 
193, 197 

Abbey,  154-65 

battle  of,  84 

Old,  151 
Melville  Castle,  41 

Viscount,  41 
Merlin,  166 
"  Merrilies,  IMeg,"  110 
Merse,  the,  128 
Mertoun  House,  20,  75,  168 
"  Middlemas,"  142 
Millljurnholm,  Elliot  of,  111 
Millie,  Nicol,  96 
"Minna  and   Brenda  Troil," 

2,  134 
Minstrelsy    of    the    Scottish 

Border,  21,  41-8 
Moffat,  117,  138 
Monastery,  The,  131,  147 
"Moniplies,  Richie,"  135 
"  Monkbarns,"  27,  114 
Montrose,  Marquis  of,  91 
Moor,  Ancrum,  160 
Moore,  Tom,  146,  185 
Moray,  Regent,  40 
Morow,  John,  156 
Morville,  Hugh  de,  152  n. 
Mother,  Scott's,  25,  91 
"  Mousa,  Castle,"  134 
"  Mucklestane  Moor,"  120 
"Mumps  Ha',"  112 
"Mumps,  Tib,"  112 
Munich,  190 
Murray,  Outlaw,  54 
Musselburgh,  69,  114 
"  Musseleras,"  113 
Muti,  Villa,"Rome,  189 
My  Aunt  Margaret's  Mirror, 
142 


216 


INDEX 


Mysore,  4 

Napier,  Lord,  54 
Naples,  4,  186 
Napoleon,  19,  77,  141,  180 
Naworth,  122 
Nenthorn,  Rov  of,  135 
Newark,  56,  72,  170 
New  England,  4 
New  Zealand,  203 
Newliaven,  192 
Nicolson,  John,  186 
Nigel,  Tlie  Fortunes  of,  135 
Niger,  the,  67 
Nimeguen,  191 
Niven,  Aunaple,  121 
"Nixon,  Cristal,"  138 
Norgate,  Mr  Le  Grys,  206 
Norham,  30,  74 
"Noma  of  the  Fitful  Head," 
2,  134 

"Ochiltree,  Edie,"  114 

Old  Mortality,  47,  60,  89, 112, 

115-7,  173 
"  Oldbnclc,  Jonathan,"  114 
Opus,  Magtmm,  the,  181 
Ormiston,  John,  132 

Sandy,  19 
"  Osbaldistone,    Frank,"    35, 

123 
"Osbaldistone  Hall,"  122 
Otterbum,  30,  159 
Oxfordshire,  3 

Park,  Archie,  111 

Mungo,  67.  170 
Park,  Hyde,  136 
"Pate-in- Peril,"  138 
Paterson,  Robert  (original  of 

"Old  Mortality"),  115 
Peebles,  31m.,  143 
Peel,  The,  63  n. 

Glen,  the,  67 
Pencaitland,  130 
Penicuik  House,  40 
Penny,  the  Lee,  140 
Perth,  ancient   Scottish  capi- 
tal, 142 


"  Peveril,  Julian,"  3 
Peveril  of  tlie  Peak,  3,  4,  135 
Philiphaugh,  169 
Phillips,  Margaret,  50 
Pigott,  Sir  Hugh,  185 
Pirate,  The,  2,  95,  134. 
Pitt,  William,  71 
Polwarth,  167 

Lord,  75 
Portobello,  114 
Portsmoutli,  186 
Prestonpans,  27,  130 
Provence,  4 

Pur  die,  Tom,  65,  92,  97,  138, 
161,  196 

Qimrterly  Review,  76 
Queen's  Wake,  The,  50 
Quentin  Durward,  4,  135-6 

Raids,  Liddesdale,  42-6 
Ramsay,  Allan,  Scott  reads,  28 
Raveushall,  108 
liavenswood,  129 
"Rebecca  of  York,"  131 
Redgauntlet,   2,  16,  47,  128. 

137 
Redgauntlet  Castle,  138 
"Redgauntlet,    Sir    Robert," 

139 
Reformation,  the,  153 
Reliques,  Percy's,  Scott  reads, 

30 
Rhine,  the,  4,  191 
Rhymer's  Glen,  the,  95 
Rhymer,  Thomas  the,  95 
Richardson,  John,  191 
Ritchie,  David,  118 

Miss     (original     of    "Meg 

Dods"),'l37 
Rob  Roy,  121-4 
Rob  Roy  country,  122 
Robertson,  Principal,  14 
"  Robsart,  A.my,"  134 
Rokeby,  35,  105 
Rome,  187 

Rosebank,  Kelso,  29 
Roslin  Castle  ami  Chapel,  38 
Rothbury,  122 


21' 


INDEX 


Rotterdam,  191 
Roxburgh,  Castle  of,  29 

Churchyard  of,  115 
Ruskin,   John,   58,   102,   108, 

138 
Russells  of  Ashestiel,  56 
"  Rutherfords,  the  bauld,"  23 
Rutherford,  Rev.  John,  170 
Lord,  129  w. 
Professor,  25 
Saintshury,  Professor,  208 
St  Abb's,  2 

St  Ronan's  Well,  52, 135-6 
"Sampson,  Dominie,"  110 
Sandyknowe,  6,  17-27,  58,  68, 

74 
Sang  of  the  Outlaw  Murray, 

170 
Sanson,  James,  110 
Scot,  Michael,  149,  160,  166 
Scots,    Satchells'    History    of 

the,  21 
Scott,  Anne,  100,  183 
Charles,  100,  199 
Charlotte   Sophia  (see   Mrs 

Lockhart) 
Janet,  20 

Lady,  91,99,  141,  173,  181 
Maxwell,  Hon.  Mrs,  89  n., 

91,  101 
Robert  (of  Sandyknowe),  20 
Robert,  Captain  (of  Kelso), 

29 
Walter,  W.S.,  25 
Walter,  Mrs,  25,  91 
Sir  Walter,  birth  of,  8; 
College  Wynd  illness,  17  ; 
goes  to  Sandyknowe,  17  ; 
a  possible  soldier,  18 ; 
"  poetic  impulse,"  20 ; 
ancestry  of,  23;  "the 
thatched  mansion,"  26  ; 
visits  Bath  and  Preston- 
pans,  27  ;  Kelso  life,  27  ; 
at  school  and  college,  28  ; 
meets  Burns,  30 ;  called 
to  the  Bar,  33 ;  in  love, 
34  ;  marries,  35  ;  German 
translations   and  Liddes- 


dale  "raids,"  39-45  ;  pub- 
lishes The  Mivstrelsy,  46 ; 
becomes  "Shirra"  and  set- 
tles at  Ashestiel,  53;  writes 
The  Lay,  69 ;  Marmion, 
73 ;  begins  Abbotsford,  81 ; 
the  Wavcrleys,  102-145; 
financial  troubles,  175 ; 
smitten  with  paralysis, 
183 ;  leaves  Abbotsford 
for  Italy,  185;  at  Malta, 
187  ;  Rome,  189  ;  Loudon, 
191  ;  home  again,  193 ; 
listens  to  Lockhart  reading 
the  New  Testament,  194  ; 
death  of,  197  ;  funeral  of, 
199  ;  his  influence  to-day, 
202-10. 
Sir  Walter  (the  second),  90, 
100 

Selkirk,  G3,  69,  83,  142,  169 
Scott's  monument  at,  54 

Shakespeare,  139 

Sharpe,  Kirkpatrick,  92,  136 

Shetland,  134 

Shiel's,  Tibbie,  172 

Shillinglaw,  Joseph,  97 

"Shirra,  the,"  53 

Shirra 's  Knowe,  74,  and  Tree, 
74 

Shortreed,  Robert,  42 

Sinton,  Scotts  of,  24 

Sir  Tristrem,  70,  165 

Skene,  James,  61,  65,  130,  140, 
173 
Loch,  111,  117,  174 

Smailholrn,  17 

Sol  way  Firth,  2,  109,  138 
Moss,  1 

Southey,  Robert,  74 

Spain,  4,  19 

Speak-a-Bit,  89 

Stanley,  Uean,  87 

Stennis,  Stones  of,  134 

Stephen,  Leslie,  quoted,  123 

Stevenson,  R.  L.,  202 

Stewart,  Dugald,  31 

Stratford-on-Avon,  148 

Stuart,  Lady  Louisa,  185 


218 


INDEX 


Sumburgb  Head,  134 
*'  Summertrees,"  138 
Surgeon's   Daughter,    The,   4, 

142 
Swaiiston,  John,  92 
Swiutons,  the,  23 
Switzerland,  4 
Syria,  4 

"  Tackit,"  surname  of,  132 

Tait,  Walter,  133 

Tales  of  a  Grandfather,  95, 

141,  203 
TaUs  of  My  Landlord,  38, 1 1 2, 

130 
Talisman,  The,  4,  38,  140 
Tay,  the,  142 
Teheran,  100 
Teviot,  the,  114 
Teviothead,  110 
Theatrical  Fund  Dinner,  8  n. 
Thomson,  George,  110 
"Thorlieshope,"  111 
Thornilee,  69 
"Tillietudlem,"116 
Tinnis,  170 
"Tod  Gabbie,"lll 
Tod  Willie,  111 
Toftfield,  96 
Torwoodlee,  193 
Train,  Joseph,  108  w.,  115 
Traquair,  48,  107,  137 
Trossachs,  the,  77 
"Tully-Veolan,"  originals  of, 

107 
Turner,  J.  M.  W.,  168 
Tweed,  the,  2,  58,  82,  83, 193 
Twtiedies,  the,  140 
Tynedrish,  MacDonald  of,  106 
Tyniughame,  129 
Tyrol,  the,  190 

Ulm,  190 

United  States,  203 


Valetta,  186 
Venice,  190 
"  Vernon,  Di,"  35,  123 
Victoria,  Queen,  109 

Waldies,  the,  138 

Walker,  Helen,  125 

Wallace,  statue  of,  168 

"  Wandering  Willie,"  139 

Warwickshire,  3 

Wat,  Auld,  of  Harden,  24 

Waverley,   8,  19,  47,   70,  77, 

102-7 
Weimar,  190 
Weirdlaw  Hill,  95 
Wellington,  Duke  of,  18 
"  Westburnflat,"  121 
Whale,  Lancelot,  30 
"  White  Lady  of  Avenel,"  60, 

132 
Widcm,  The  Highland,  141 
Wilkie,  Sir  D.,  185 
William  and  Helen,  39 
Williamhope  Ridge,  67 
Williams,  Rev.  John,  199 
Wilson,  Professor,  47 
Winton  House,  130 
"  Wolfs  Crag,  the,"  129 
"Wolf's  Hope,  the,"  129 
Woodhouselee,  40 
Woodstock,  3,  141,  180 
Wordsworth,  William,  70 

Yair,  143,  159 
Yarrow,  6,  44,  49,  78,  169 
"  Flower  of,"  24,  171 ;  Kirk 

of,  170 ;   Inscribed  Stone 

of,  170 
Yawkins,  111 
Yetholm,  110 
York,  Cardinal,  189 
Young's,  C.  A.,  The  Waverley 

Novels,  206 


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